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Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honorable William Cecil Lord
Burghley, Secretary of State in the Reign of King Edward the Sixth, and Lord
High Treasurer, of England in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Containing an
historical View of the Times in which he lived, and of the many eminent and
illustrious Persons with whom he was connected; with Extracts from his Private
and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first published from the
Originals. By the Reverend Edward Nares, D.D., Regius Professor of Modern
History in the University of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London: 1828, 1832.
The work of Dr. Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which
Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt when first he landed in Brobdingnag, and saw corn
as high as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens
of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a
gigantic scale. The title is as long as an ordinary preface: the prefatory
matter would furnish out an ordinary book; and the book contains as much reading
as an ordinary library. We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of
paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two
thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches
cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might,
before the deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shallum.
But unhappily the life of man is now three-score years and ten; and we cannot
but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a portion
of so short an existence.
Compared with the labor of reading through these volumes, all other labor, the
labor of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar
plantations, is an agreeable recreation. There was, it is said, a criminal in
Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys.
He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his
mind, and went to the oar. Guicciardini, though certainly not the most amusing
of writers, is a Herodotus or a Froissart, when compared with Dr. Nares, It is
not merely in bulk, but in specific gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all
other human compositions. On every subject which the Professor discusses, he
produces three times as many pages as another man; and one of his pages is as
tedious as another man's three. His book is swelled to its vast dimensions by
endless repetitions, by episodes which have nothing to do with the main action,
by quotations from books which are in every circulating library, and by
reflections which, when they happen to be just, are so obvious that they must
necessarily occur to the mind of every reader. He employs more words in
expounding and defending a truism than any other writer would employ in
supporting a paradox. Of the rules of historical perspective, he has not the
faintest notion. There is neither foreground nor background in his delineation.
The wars of Charles the Fifth in Germany are detailed at almost as much length
as in Robertson's life of that prince. The troubles of Scotland are related as
fully as in M'Crie's Life of John Knox. It would be most unjust to deny that Dr.
Nares is a man of great industry and research; but he is so utterly incompetent
to, arrange the materials which he has collected that he might as well have left
them in their original repositories.
Neither the facts which Dr. Nares has discovered, nor the arguments which he
urges, will, we apprehend, materially alter the opinion generally entertained by
judicious readers of history concerning his hero. Lord Burleigh can hardly be
called a great man. He was not one of those whose genius and energy change the
fate of empires. He was by nature and habit one of those who follow, not one of
those who lead. Nothing that is recorded, either of his words or of his actions,
indicates intellectual or moral elevation. But his talents, though not
brilliant, were of an eminently useful kind; and his principles, though not
inflexible, were not more relaxed than those of his associates and competitors.
He had a cool temper, a sound judgment, great powers of application, and a
constant eye to the main chance. In his youth he was, it seems, fond of
practical jokes. Yet even out of these he contrived to extract some pecuniary
profit. When he was studying the law at Gray's Inn, he lost all his furniture
and books at the gaming table to one of his friends. He accordingly bored a hole
in the wall which separated his chambers from those of his associate, and at
midnight bellowed through this passage threats of damnation and calls to
repentance in the ears of the victorious gambler, who lay sweating with fear all
night, and refunded his winnings on his knees next day. "Many other the like
merry jest," says his old biographer, "I have heard him tell, too long to be
here noted." To the last, Burleigh was somewhat jocose; and some of his sportive
sayings have been recorded by Bacon. They show much more shrewdness than
generosity, and are, indeed, neatly expressed reasons for exacting money
rigorously, and for keeping it carefully. It must, however, be acknowledged that
he was rigorous and careful for the public advantage as well as for his own. To
extol his moral character as Dr. Nares has extolled it is absurd. It would be
equally absurd to represent him as a corrupt, rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He
paid great attention to the interests of the state, and great attention also to
the interest of his own family. He never deserted his friends till it was very
inconvenient to stand by them, was an excellent Protestant, when it was not very
advantageous to be a Papist, recommended a tolerant policy to his mistress as
strongly as he could recommend it without hazarding her favor, never put to the
rack any person from whom it did not seem probable that useful information might
be derived, and was so moderate in his desires that he left only three hundred
distinct landed estates, though he might, as his honest servant assures us, have
left much more, "if he would have taken money out of the Exchequer for his own
use, as many Treasurers have done."
Burleigh, like the old Marquess of Winchester, who preceded him in the custody
of the White Staff, was of the willow, and not of the oak. He first rose into
notice by defending the supremacy of Henry the Eighth. He was subsequently
favored and promoted by the Duke of Somerset. He not only contrived to escape
unhurt when his patron fell, but became an important member of the
administration of Northumberland. Dr. Nares assures us over and over again that
there could have been nothing base in Cecil's conduct on this occasion; for,
says he, Cecil continued to stand well with Cranmer. This, we confess, hardly
satisfies us. We are much of the mind of Falstaff's tailor. We must have better
assurance for Sir John than Bardolph's. We like not the security.
Through the whole course of that miserable intrigue which was carried on round
the dying bed of Edward the Sixth, Cecil so bemeaned himself as to avoid, first,
the displeasure of Northumberland, and afterwards the displeasure of Mary. He
was prudently unwilling to put his hand to the instrument which changed the
course of the succession. But the furious Dudley was master of the palace.
Cecil, therefore, according to his own account, excused himself from signing as
a party, but consented to sign as a witness. It is not easy to describe his
dexterous conduct at this most perplexing crisis in language more appropriate
than that which is employed by old Fuller. "His hand wrote it as secretary of
state," says that quaint writer; "but his heart consented not thereto. Yea, he
openly opposed it; though at last yielding to the greatness of Northumberland,
in an age when it was present drowning not to swim with the stream. But as the
philosopher tells us, that though the planets be whirled about daily from east
to west, by the motion of the primum mobile, yet have they also a contrary
proper motion of their own from west to east, which they slowly, though surely,
move, at their leisure; so Cecil had secret counter-endeavors against the strain
of the court herein, and privately advanced his rightful intentions, against the
foresaid duke's ambition."
This was undoubtedly the most perilous conjuncture of Cecil's life. Wherever
there was a safe course, he was safe. But here every course was full of danger.
His situation rendered it impossible for him to be neutral. If he acted on
either side, if he refused to act at all, he ran a fearful risk. He saw all the
difficulties of his position. He sent his money and plate out of London, made
over his estates to his son, and carried arms about his person. His best arms,
however, were his sagacity and his self-command. The plot in which he had been
an unwilling accomplice ended, as it was natural that so odious and absurd a
plot should end, in the ruin of its contrivers. In the meantime, Cecil quietly
extricated himself and, having been successively patronized by Henry, by
Somerset, and by Northumberland, continued to flourish under the protection of
Mary.
He had no aspirations after the crown of martyrdom. He confessed himself,
therefore, with great decorum, heard mass in Wimbledon Church at Easter, and,
for the better ordering of his spiritual concerns, took a priest into his house.
Dr. Nares, whose simplicity passes that of any casuist with whom we are
acquainted, vindicates his hero by assuring us that this was not superstition,
but pure unmixed hypocrisy. "That he did in some manner conform, we shall not be
able, in the face of existing documents, to deny; while we feel in our own minds
abundantly satisfied, that, during this very trying reign, he never abandoned
the prospect of another revolution in favor of Protestantism." In another place,
the Doctor tells us, that Cecil went to mass "with no idolatrous intention."
Nobody, we believe, ever accused him of idolatrous intentions. The very ground
of the charge against him is that he had no idolatrous intentions. We never
should have blamed him if he had really gone to Wimbledon Church, with the
feelings of a good Catholic, to worship the host. Dr. Nares speaks in several
places with just severity of the sophistry of the Jesuits, and with just
admiration of the incomparable letters of Pascal. It is somewhat strange,
therefore, that he should adopt, to the full extent, the jesuitical doctrine of
the direction of intentions.
We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to be burned. The deep stain upon his
memory is that, for differences of opinion for which he would risk nothing
himself, he, in the day of his power, took away without scruple the lives of
others. One of the excuses suggested in these Memoirs for his conforming, during
the reign of Mary to the Church of Rome, is that he may have been of the same
mind with those German Protestants who were called Adiaphorists, and who
considered the popish rites as matters indifferent. Melanchthon was one of these
moderate persons, and "appears," says Dr. Nares, "to have gone greater lengths
than any imputed to Lord Burleigh." We should have thought this not only an
excuse, but a complete vindication, if Cecil had been an Adiaphorist for the
benefit of others as well as for his own. If the popish rites were matters of so
little moment that a good Protestant might lawfully practice them for his
safety, how could it be just or humane that a Papist should be hanged, drawn,
and quartered, for practicing them from a sense of duty? Unhappily these
non-essentials soon became matters of life and death just at the very time at
which Cecil attained the highest point of power and favor, an Act of Parliament
was passed by which the penalties of high treason were denounced against persons
who should do in sincerity what he had done from cowardice.
Early in the reign of Mary, Cecil was employed in a mission scarcely consistent
with the character of a zealous Protestant. He was sent to escort the Papal
Legate, Cardinal Pole, from Brussels to London. That great body of moderate
persons who cared more for the quiet of the realm than for the controverted
points which were in issue between the Churches seem to have placed their chief
hope in the wisdom and humanity of the gentle Cardinal. Cecil, it is clear,
cultivated the friendship of Pole with great assiduity, and received great
advantage from the Legate's protection.
But the best protection of Cecil, during the gloomy and disastrous reign of
Mary, was that which he derived from his own prudence and from his own temper, a
prudence which could never be lulled into carelessness, a temper which could
never be irritated into rashness. The Papists could find no occasion against
him. Yet he did not lose the esteem even of those sterner Protestants who had
preferred exile to recantation. He attached himself to the persecuted heiress of
the throne, and entitled himself to her gratitude and confidence. Yet he
continued to receive marks of favor from the Queen. In the House of Commons, he
put himself at the head of the party opposed to the Court. Yet, so guarded was
his language that, even when some of those who acted with him were imprisoned by
the Privy Council, he escaped with impunity.
At length Mary died: Elizabeth succeeded; and Cecil rose at once to greatness.
He was sworn in Privy-councilor and Secretary of State to the new sovereign
before he left her prison of Hatfield; and he continued to serve her during
forty years, without intermission, in the highest employments. His abilities
were precisely those which keep men long in power. He belonged to the class of
the Walpoles, the Pelhams, and the Liverpools, not to that of the St. Johns, the
Carterets, the Chathams, and the Cannings. If he had been a man of original
genius and of an enterprising spirit, it would have been scarcely possible for
him to keep his power or even his head. There was not room in one government for
an Elizabeth and a Richelieu. What the haughty daughter of Henry needed, was a
moderate, cautious, flexible minister, skilled in the details of business,
competent to advise, but not aspiring to command. And such a minister she found
in Burleigh. No arts could shake the confidence which she reposed in her old and
trusty servant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the brilliant talents and
accomplishments of Essex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart, of the woman;
but no rival could deprive the Treasurer of the place which he possessed in the
favor of the Queen. She sometimes chide him sharply; but he was the man whom she
delighted to honor. For Burleigh, she forgot her usual parsimony both of wealth
and of dignities. For Burleigh, she relaxed that severe etiquette to which she
was unreasonably attached. Every other person to whom she addressed her speech,
or on whom the glance of her eagle eye fell, instantly sank on his knee. For
Burleigh alone, a chair was set in her presence; and there the old minister, by
birth only a plain Lincolnshire esquire, took his ease, while the haughty heirs
of the Fitzalans and the De Veres humbled themselves to the dust around him. At
length, having, survived all his early coadjutors and rivals, he died full of
years and honors. His royal mistress visited him on his deathbed, and cheered
him with assurances of her affection and esteem; and his power passed, with
little diminution, to a son who inherited his abilities, and whose mind had been
formed by his counsels.
The life of Burleigh was commensurate with one of the most important periods in
the history of the world. It exactly measures the time during which the House of
Austria held decided superiority and aspired to universal dominion. In the year
in which Burleigh was born, Charles the Fifth obtained the imperial crown. In
the year in which Burleigh died, the vast designs which had, during near a
century, kept Europe in constant agitation, were buried in the same grave with
the proud and sullen Philip.
The life of Burleigh was commensurate also with the period during which a great
moral revolution was effected, a revolution the consequences of which were felt,
not only in the cabinets of princes, but at half the firesides in Christendom.
He was born when the great religious schism was just commencing. He lived to see
that schism complete, and to see a line of demarcation, which, since his death,
has been very little altered, strongly drawn between Protestant and Catholic
Europe.
The only event of modern times which can be properly compared with the
Reformation is the French Revolution, or, to speak more accurately, that great
revolution of political feeling which took place in almost every part of the
civilized world during the eighteenth century, and which obtained in France its
most terrible and signal triumph. Each of these memorable events may be
described as a rising up of the human reason against a Caste. The one was a
struggle of the laity against the clergy for intellectual liberty; the other was
a struggle of the people against princes and nobles for political liberty. In
both cases, the spirit of innovation was at first encouraged by the class to
which it was likely to be most prejudicial. It was under the patronage of
Frederic, of Catherine, of Joseph, and of the grandees of France, that the
philosophy which afterwards threatened all the thrones and aristocracies of
Europe with destruction first became formidable. The ardor with which men betook
themselves to liberal studies, at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning
of the sixteenth century, was zealously encouraged by the heads of that very
church to which liberal studies were destined to be fatal. In both cases, when
the explosion came, it came with a violence which appalled and disgusted many of
those who had previously been distinguished by the freedom of their opinions.
The violence of the democratic party in France made Burke a Tory and Alfieri a
courtier. The violence of the chiefs of the German schism made Erasmus a
defender of abuses, and turned the author of Utopia into a persecutor. In both
cases, the convulsion which had overthrown deeply seated errors, shook all the
principles on which society rests to their very foundations. The minds of men
were unsettled. It seemed for a time that all order and morality were about to
perish with the prejudices with which they had been long and intimately
associated. Frightful cruelties were committed. Immense masses of property were
confiscated. Every part of Europe swarmed with exiles. In moody and turbulent
spirits zeal soured into malignity, or foamed into madness. From the political
agitation of the eighteenth century sprang the Jacobins. From the religious
agitation of the sixteenth century sprang the Anabaptists. The partisans of
Robespierre robbed and murdered in the name of fraternity and equality. The
followers of Kniperdoling robbed and murdered in the name of Christian liberty.
The feeling of patriotism was in many parts of Europe, almost wholly
extinguished. All the old maxims of foreign policy were changed. Physical
boundaries were superseded by moral boundaries. Nations made war on each other
with new arms, with arms which no fortifications, however strong by nature or,
by art, could resist, with arms before which rivers parted like the Jordan, and
ramparts fell down like the walls of Jericho. The great masters of fleets and
armies were often reduced to confess, like Milton's warlike angel, how hard they
found it
"--To exclude Spiritual substance with corporeal bar."
Europe was divided, as Greece had been divided during the period concerning
which Thucydides wrote. The conflict was not, as it is in ordinary times,
between state and state, but between two omnipresent factions, each of which was
in some places dominant and in other places oppressed, but which, openly or
covertly, carried on their strife in the bosom of every society. No man asked
whether another belonged to the same country with himself, but whether he
belonged to the same sect. Party-spirit seemed to justify and consecrate acts
which, in any other times, would have been considered as the foulest of
treasons. The French emigrant saw nothing disgraceful in bringing Austrian and
Prussian hussars to Paris. The Irish or Italian democrat saw no impropriety in
serving the French Directory against his own native government. So, in the
sixteenth century, the fury of theological factions suspended all national
animosities and jealousies. The Spaniards were invited into France by the
League; the English were invited into France by the Huguenots.
We by no means intend to underrate or to palliate the crimes and excesses which,
during the last generation, were produced by the spirit of democracy. But, when
we hear men zealous for the Protestant religion, constantly represent the French
Revolution as radically and essentially evil on account of those crimes and
excesses, we cannot but remember that the deliverance of our ancestors from the
house of their spiritual bondage was effected "by plagues and by signs, by
wonders and by war." We cannot but remember that, as in the case of the French
Revolution, so also in the case of the Reformation, those who rose up against
tyranny were themselves deeply tainted with the vices which tyranny engenders.
We cannot but remember that libels scarcely less scandalous than those of
Hebert, mummeries scarcely less absurd than those of Clootz, and crimes scarcely
less atrocious than those of Marat, disgrace the early history of Protestantism.
The Reformation is an event long past. That volcano has spent its rage. The wide
waste produced by its outbreak is forgotten. The landmarks which were swept away
have been replaced. The ruined edifices have been repaired. The lava has covered
with a rich incrustation the fields which it once devastated, and, after having
turned a beautiful and fruitful garden into a desert, has again turned the
desert into a still more beautiful and fruitful garden. The second great
eruption is not yet over. The marks of its ravages are still all around us. The
ashes are still hot beneath our feet. In some directions the deluge of fire
still continues to spread. Yet experience surely entitles us to believe that
this explosion, like that which preceded it, will fertilize the soil which it
has devastated. Already, in those parts which have suffered most severely, rich
cultivation and secure dwellings have begun to appear amidst the waste. The more
we read of the history of past ages, the more we observe the signs of our own
times, the more do we feel our hearts filled and swelled up by a good hope for
the future destinies of the human race.
The history of the Reformation in England is full of strange problems. The most
prominent and extraordinary phenomenon which it presents to us is the gigantic
strength of the government contrasted with the feebleness of the religious
parties. During the twelve or thirteen years which followed the death of Henry
the Eighth, the religion of the state was thrice changed. Protestantism was
established by Edward; the Catholic Church was restored by Mary; Protestantism
was again established by Elizabeth. The faith of the nation seemed to depend on
the personal inclinations of the sovereign. Nor was this all. An established
church was then, as a matter of course, a persecuting church. Edward persecuted
Catholics. Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth persecuted Catholics again.
The father of those three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of persecuting
both sects at once, and had sent to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic who
denied the real presence, and the traitor who denied the royal supremacy. There
was nothing in England like that fierce and bloody opposition which, in France,
each of the religious factions in its turn offered to the government. We had
neither a Coligny nor a Mayenne, neither a Moncontour nor an Ivry. No English
city braved sword and famine for the reformed doctrines with the spirit of
Rochelle, or for the Catholic doctrines with the spirit of Paris. Neither sect
in England formed a League. Neither sect extorted a recantation from the
sovereign. Neither sect could obtain from an adverse sovereign even a
toleration. The English Protestants, after several years of domination, sank
down with scarcely a struggle under the tyranny of Mary. The Catholics, after
having regained and abused their old ascendancy submitted patiently to the
severe rule of Elizabeth. Neither Protestants nor Catholics engaged in any great
and well-organized scheme of resistance. A few wild and tumultuous risings,
suppressed as soon as they appeared, a few dark conspiracies in which only a
small number of desperate men engaged, such were the utmost efforts made by
these two parties to assert the most sacred of human rights, attacked by the
most odious tyranny.
The explanation of these circumstances which has generally been given is very
simple but by no means satisfactory. The power of the crown, it is said, was
then at its height, and was in fact despotic. This solution, we own, seems to us
to be no solution at all. It has long been the fashion, a fashion introduced by
Mr. Hume, to describe the English monarchy in the sixteenth century as an
absolute monarchy. And such undoubtedly it appears to a superficial observer.
Elizabeth, it is true, often spoke to her parliaments in language as haughty and
imperious as that which the Great Turk would use to his divan. She punished with
great severity members of the House of Commons who, in her opinion, carried the
freedom of debate too far. She assumed the power of legislating by means of
proclamations. She imprisoned her subjects without bringing them to a legal
trial. Torture was often employed, in defiance of the laws of England, for the
purpose of extorting confessions from those who were shut up in her dungeons.
The authority of the Star-Chamber and of the Ecclesiastical Commission was at
its highest point. Severe restraints were imposed on political and religious
discussion. The number of presses was at one time limited. No man could print
without a license; and every work had to undergo the scrutiny of the Primate, or
the Bishop of London. Persons whose writings were displeasing to the Court, were
cruelly mutilated, like Stubbs, or put to death, like Penry. Nonconformity was
severely punished. The Queen prescribed the exact rule of religious faith and
discipline; and whoever departed from that rule, either to the right or to the
left, was in danger of severe penalties.
Such was this government. Yet we know that it was loved by the great body of
those who lived under it. We know that, during the fierce contests of the
seventeenth century, both the hostile parties spoke of the time of Elizabeth as
of a golden age. That great Queen has now been lying two hundred and thirty
years in Henry the Seventh's chapel. Yet her memory is still dear to the hearts
of a free people.
The truth seems to be that the government of the Tudors was, with a few
occasional deviations, a popular government, under the forms of despotism. At
first sight, it may seem that the prerogatives of Elizabeth were not less ample
than those of Lewis the Fourteenth, and her parliaments were as obsequious as
his parliaments, that her warrant had as much authority as his lettre de cachet.
The extravagance with which her courtiers eulogized her personal and mental
charms went beyond the adulation of Boileau and Moliere. Lewis would have
blushed to receive from those who composed the gorgeous circles of Marli and
Versailles such outward marks of servitude as the haughty Britoness exacted of
all who approached her. But the authority of Lewis rested on the support of his
army. The authority of Elizabeth rested solely on the support of her people.
Those who say that her power was absolute do not sufficiently consider in what
her power consisted. Her power consisted in the willing obedience of her
subjects, in their attachment to her person and to her office, in their respect
for the old line from which she sprang, in their sense of the general security
which they enjoyed under her government. These were the means, and the only
means, which she had at her command for carrying her decrees into execution, for
resisting foreign enemies, and for crushing domestic treason. There was not a
ward in the city, there was not a hundred in any shire in England, which could
not have overpowered the handful of armed men who composed her household. If a
hostile sovereign threatened invasion, if an ambitious noble raised the standard
of revolt, she could have recourse only to the trainbands of her capital and the
array of her counties, to the citizens and yeomen of England, commanded by the
merchants and esquires of England.
Thus, when intelligence arrived of the vast preparations which Philip was making
for the subjugation of the realm, the first person to whom the government
thought of applying for assistance was the Lord Mayor of London. They sent to
ask him what force the city would engage to furnish for the defense of the
kingdom against the Spaniards. The Mayor and Common Council, in return desired
to know what force the Queen's Highness wished them to furnish. The answer was,
fifteen ships, and five thousand men. The Londoners deliberated on the matter,
and, two days after, "humbly entreated the council, in sign of their perfect
love and loyalty to prince and country, to accept ten thousand men, and thirty
ships amply furnished."
People who could give such signs as these of their loyalty were by no means to
be misgoverned with impunity. The English in the sixteenth century were, beyond
all doubt, a free people. They had not, indeed, the outward show of freedom; but
they had the reality. They had not as good a constitution as we have; but they
had that without which the best constitution is as useless as the king's
proclamation against vice and immorality, that which, without any constitution,
keeps rulers in awe, force, and the spirit to use it. Parliaments, it is true,
were rarely held, and were not very respectfully treated. The great charter was
often violated. But the people had a security against gross and systematic
misgovernment, far stronger than all the parchment that was ever marked with the
sign-manual, and than all the wax that was ever pressed by the great seal.
It is a common error in politics to confound means with ends. Constitutions,
charters, petitions of right, declarations of right, representative assemblies,
electoral colleges, are not good government; nor do they, even when most
elaborately constructed, necessarily produce good government. Laws exist in vain
for those who have not the courage and the means to defend them. Electors meet
in vain where want makes them the slaves of the landlord, or where superstition
makes them the slaves of the priest. Representative assemblies sit in vain
unless they have at their command, in the last resort the physical power which
is necessary to make their deliberations free, and their votes effectual.
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