NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1832.] THE work of Doctor Nares has filled us with | radox. Of the rules of historical perspective astonishment similar to that which Captain he has not the faintest notion. There is neither Lemuel Gulliver felt, when first he landed in foreground nor background in his delineation. Brobdignag, and saw corn as high as the oaks The wars of Charles the Fifth in Germany are in the New Forest, thimbles as large as detailed at almost as much length as in Robertbuckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. son's Life of that prince. The troubles of The whole book, and every component part of Scotland are related as fully as in M'Crie's it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long Life of John Knox. It would be most unjust as an ordinary preface. The prefatory matter to deny that Doctor Nares is a man of great would furnish out an ordinary book; and the industry and research; but he is so utterly inbook contains as much reading as an ordinary competent to arrange the materials which he library. We cannot sum up the merits of the has collected, that he might as well have left stupendous mass of paper which lies before us, them in their original repositories. better than by saying, that it consists of about two thousand closely printed 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 threescore years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Doctor Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence. Compared with the labour of reading through these volumes, all other labour-the labour of thieves on the tread-mill, 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 an Herodotus, or a Froissart, when compared with Doctor 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 pa Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable 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 Eliza beth. Containing on 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 Pri. ate and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first Published from the originofessor of Modern History in the ARES, University of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London. 1828, 1832. Neither the facts which Doctor 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 Burghley 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 to his companion at the gaming-table. He accordingly bored a hole in the wall which separated his chambers from those of his associate, and at midnight bellowed through his passage threats of damnation and calls to repentance in the ears of the victo rious gambler, who lay sweating with fear all night, and refunded his winnings on his knees next day. "Many other the like merry jests," says his old biographer, "I have heard him tell, too long to be here noted." To the last, Burghley 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 Doctor Nares has extolled it, would be absurd. It would be equally absurd to represent him as a corrupt, rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He paid great attention to the interest 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; | estates to his son, and carried arms about his was an excellent Protestant when it was not person. His best arms, however, were his savery advantageous to be a Papist; recommend-gacity and his self-command. The plot in ed a tolerant policy to his mistress as strongly which he had been an unwilling accomplice, as he could recommend it without hazarding ended, as it was natural that so odious and her favour; never put to the rack any person absurd a plot should end, in the ruin of its from whom it did not seem probable that very contrivers. In the mean time, Cecil quietly useful information might be derived; and was extricated himself, and, having been successo moderate in his desires, that he left only sively patronised by Henry, Somerset, and three hundred distinct landed estates, though he Northumberland, continued to flourish under might, as his honest servant assures us, have the protection of Mary. left much more, "if he would have taken money out of the exchequer for his own use, as many treasurers have done." Burghley, 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 favoured 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. Doctor 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. 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. Doctor 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 aban doned the prospect of another revolution in favour 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. Nobody would have blamed him if he had really gone to Wimbledon church, with the feelings of a good Catholic, to worship the host. Doctor Nares speaks in several places, with just se verity, 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. Through the whole course of that miserable intrigue which was carried on round the dying bed of Edward the Sixth, Cecil so demeaned 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 We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to himself from signing as a party, but consented be burned. The deep stain upon his memory to sign as a witness. It is not easy to describe is, that, for differences of opinion for which he his dexterous conduct at this most perplexing would risk nothing himself, he, in the day of crisis, in language more appropriate than that his power, took away without scruple the lives which is employed by old Fuller: "His hand of others. One of the excuses suggested in wrote it as secretary of state," says that quaint these Memoirs for his conforming, during the writer; "but his heart consented not thereto. reign of Mary, to the Church of Rome, is, that Yea, he openly opposed it; though at last he may have been of the same mind with yielding to the greatness of Northumberland, those German Protestants who were called in an age when it was present drowning not Adiaphorists, and who considered the popish to swim with the stream. But as the philoso- rites as matters indifferent. Melancthon was pher tells us, that, though the planets be whirl-cne of these moderate persons, and "appears," ed 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 counterendeavours 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 oney and plate out of London, made over his says Doctor Nares, "to have gone greater NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY. 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 his protection. her presence; and there the old minister, by The life of Burghley was commensurate But the best protection of Cecil, during the with one of the most important periods in the gloomy and disastrous reign of Mary, was that history of the world. It exactly measures the which he derived from his own prudence and time during which the house of Austria held from his own temper;-a prudence which unrivalled superiority, and aspired to univercould never be lulled into carelessness, a tem- sal dominion. In the year in which Burghley In the year in which Burghley per which could never be irritated into rash- was born, Charles the Fifth obtained the impeness. The Papists could find no occasion rial crown. against him. Yet he did not lose the esteem died, the vast designs which had for nearly a even of those sterner Protestants who had century kept Europe in constant agitation, preferred exile to recantation. He attached were buried in the same grave with the proud The life of Burghley was commensurate himself to the persecuted heiress of the throne, and sullen Philip. and entitled himself to her gratitude and confidence. Yet he continued to receive marks of also with the period during which a great mofavour from the queen. In the House of Com-ral revolution was effected; a revolution, the mons, 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. consequences of which were felt, not only in At length Mary died. Elizabeth succeeded, and Cecil rose at once to greatness. He was The only event of modern times which can sworn in privy counsellor and secretary of state to the new sovereign before he left her prison of Hatfield; and he continued to serve be properly compared with the Reformation, is her for forty years, without intermission, in the the French Revolution; or, to speak more achighest employments. His abilities were pre-curately, that great revolution of political feelcisely those which keep men long in power. ing which took place in almost every part of He belonged to the class of the Walpoles, the the civilized world during the eighteenth cenPelhams, and the Liverpools; not to that of tury, and which obtained in France its most the St. Johns, the Carterets, the Chathams, and terrible and signal triumph. Each of these the Cannings. If he had been a man of origi- memorable events may be described as a rising nal genius, and of a commanding mind, it up of human reason against a caste. The would have been scarcely possible for him to one was a struggle of the laity against the keep his power, or even his head. There was clergy for intellectual liberty; the other was a not room in one government for an Elizabeth struggle of the people against the privileged and a Richelieu. What the haughty daughter orders for political liberty. In both cases, the of Henry needed, was a moderate, cautious, spirit of innovation was at first encouraged by flexible minister, skilled in the details of busi- the class to which it was likely to be most preness, competent to advise, but not aspiring to judicial. It was under the patronage of Frecommand. And such a minister she found in derick, of Catharine, of Joseph, and of the Burghley. No arts could shake the confidence French nobles, that the philosophy which which she reposed in her old and trusty ser- afterwards threatened all the thrones and arisvant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the tocracies of Europe with destruction, first bebrilliant talents and accomplishments of Es- came formidable. The ardour with which men sex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart, of betook themselves to liberal studies at the close the woman; but no rival could deprive the of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixTreasurer of the place which he possessed in teenth century, was zealously encouraged by the favour of the queen. She sometimes chid the heads of that very church, to which liberal him sharply; but he was the man whom she studies were destined to be fatal. In both cases delighted to honour. For Burghley, she forgot when the explosion came, it came with a vio her usual parsimony both of wealth and of lence which appalled and disgusted many of dignities. For Burghley, she relaxed that se- those who had previously been distinguished vere etiquette to which she was unreasonably by the freedom of their opinions. The violence attached. Every other person to whom she of the democratic party in France made Burke addressed her speech, or on whom the glance a tory, and Alfieri a courtier; the violence of of her eagle eye fell, instantly sank on his the chiefs of the German schism made P 2 1512 ! 2 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. mus a defender of abuses, and turned the au- of their spiritual bondage was effected "by thor of Utopia into a persecutor. In both cases, plagues and by signs, by wonders and by war." the convulsion which had overthrown deeply- We cannot but remember, that, as in the case seated errors, shook all the principles on which of the French Revolution, so also in the case society rests to their very foundations. The of the Reformation, those who rose up against minds of men were unsettled. It seemed for a tyranny were themselves deeply tainted with time that all order and morality were about to the vices which tyranny engenders. We canperish with the prejudices with which they had not but remember, that libe's scarcely less been long and intimately associated. Frightful scandalous than those of Herbert, mummeries cruelties were committed. Immense masses scarcely less absurd than those of Clootz, and of property were confiscated. Every part of crimes scarcely less atrocious than those of Europe swarmed with exiles. In moody and Marat, disgrace the early history of Protestturbulent spirits, zeal soured into malignity, or antism. The Reformation is an event long foamed into madness. From the political agi- past. The volcano has spent its rage. The tation of the eighteenth century sprang the Ja- wide waste produced by its outbreak is forgotcobins. From the religious agitation of the ten. The landmarks which were swept away sixteenth century sprang the Anabaptists. The have been replaced. The ruined edifices have partisans of Robespierre robbed and murdered been repaired. The lava has covered with a in the name of fraternity and equality. The rich incrustation the fields which it once defollowers of Cnipperdoling robbed and mur- vastated; and after having turned a garden dered in the name of Christian liberty. The into a desert, has again turned the desert into feeling of patriotism was, in many parts of a still more beautiful and fruitful garden. The Europe, almost wholly extinguished. All the second great eruption is not yet over. The old maxims of foreign policy were changed. marks of its ravages are still all around us. Physical boundaries were superseded by mo- The ashes are still hot beneath our feet. In some ral boundaries. Nations made war on each directions, the deluge of fire still continues to other with new arms; with arms which no for- spread. Yet experience surely entitles us to tifications, however strong by nature or by art, believe that this explosion, like that which precould resist; with arms before which rivers ceded it, will fertilize the soil which it has departed like the Jordan, and ramparts fell down vastated. Already, in those parts which have like the walls of Jericho. Those arms were suffered most severely, rich cultivation and opinions, reasons, prejudices. The great mas- secure dwellings have begun to appear amidst ters of fleets and armies were often reduced to the waste. The more we read of the history confess, like Milton's warlike angel, how hard of past ages, the more we observe the signs of they found it these times, the more do we feel our hearts filled and swelled up with a good hope for the future destinies of the human race. 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 often 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 find that 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 NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY. from an adverse sovereign even a toleration. | liaments were as obsequious as his Parlia The English Protestants, after several years of ments, that her warrant had as much authority domination, sank down with scarcely a strug- as his lettre-de-cachet. The extravagance with gle under the tyranny of Mary. The Catholics, which her courtiers eulogized her personal and after having regained and abused their old as- mental charms, went beyond the adulation of cendency, submitted patiently to the severe Boileau and Molière. Louis would have blushed rule of Elizabeth. Neither Protestants nor to receive from those who composed the gorCatholics engaged in any great and well-orga-geous circles of Marli and Versailles, the outnized 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. ward marks of servitude which the haughty Britoness exacted of all who approached her. But the power of Louis rested on the support of his army. The power of Elizabeth rested solely on the support of her people. Those who say that her power was absolute do not sisted. Her power consisted in the willing sufficiently consider in what her power conobedience 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 enmeans, and the only means, which she had at joyed under her government. These were the There was not It has long been the fashion, a fashion intro- | her command for carrying her decrees into duced by Mr. Hume, to describe the English execution, for resisting foreign enemies, and monarchy in the sixteenth century as an abso- for crushing domestic treason. lute monarchy. And such undoubtedly it ap- a ward in the city, there was not a hundred in pears to a superficial observer. Elizabeth, it any shire in England, which could not have is true, often spoke to her Parliaments in lan- overpowered the handful of armed men who guage as haughty and imperious as that which composed her household. If a hostile sovethe Great Turk would use to his divan. She reign threatened invasion, if an ambitious nopunished with great severity members of the ble raised the standard of revolt, she could House of Commons, who, in her opinion, car-have recourse only to the train bands of her ried the freedom of debate too far. She as-capital, and the array of her counties, to the sumed the power of legislating by means of citizens and yeomen of England, commanded proclamation. 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 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. Nonformity 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 penal ties. 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 sixteenth century, both the hostile parties spoke of the time of Elizabeth as of a golden age. The 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 Louis the Fourteenth, that her Par Thus, when intelligence arrived of the vast by the merchants and esquires of England. 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 defence of the kingdom against the Spaniards. The mayor and common council, in return, desired to know The answer was-fifteen ships what force the queen's highness desired them to furnish. 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 verned with impunity. The English in the of their loyalty were by no means to be misgosixteenth 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 a good constitution, 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 rarely held; and were not very respectfully spirit to use it. Parliaments, it is true, were 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 was that was ever pressed by the great seal. |