they were ordered to congratulate Her Majesty on her escape from so daring a plot. It must have required all the assurance of tried diplomatists to offer these felicitations, knowing the real position of James in the affair; but that did not deter them from making them, and from pressing on the English Government; and to their agreeable surprise they encountered no obstacle at all. Cecil, who saw dearly that the queen's health was declining, was only anxious to secure the good-will of James, who must to a certainty, ere long, become master of the English throne. The only thing was to open and conduct an understanding with him without detection by Elizabeth, which would cost him his head. But Cecil, who was as cunning as he was selfish, contrived to manage the matter with James's ambassadors in the deepest secrecy. He let James know by them that he had a warm friend in him, who was watching to serve him and to guard the succession from all intruders for him. He promised an increase of £2,000 to James's pension; and Lord Henry Howard was taken into the secret. It was planned that the necessary correspondence should be carried on in his name, and not in that of Cecil, with Bruce and Mar in Scotland. James was delighted with the turn affairs had taken, and was so confident of the sincerity and zeal of Cecil, for he knew that all his interests were engaged in the scheme, that, though urged in the following year to send a special ambassador to Elizabeth, he refused, saying nobody could serve him so thoroughly as Cecil was doing. At the same time Raleigh and Cobham, not being let into the secret, failed to make good their interest with the heir-expectant, and being evidently secretly hated by Cecil and Howard, who called them "those wicked villains," they were set down by James as his enemies, and remembered duly when he came into power. Meantime Cecil continued to serve Elizabeth with his usual hollow flatteries, and to appear more inclined to the claims of Arabella Stuart than of James. Elizabeth was so little aware at this time of Cecil's treason, that she often amused herself with ridiculing his pigmy person. One day, observing the young Lady Darby wearing something about her neck suspended by a cord, she snatched it from her, and found it a miniature of Cecil. She then, to make fun of the lovers, tied the portrait on her own shoe, and walked about with it there; and then she removed it and pinned it to her elbow, and wore it there some time.
Lord Mountjoy, the friend of Essex, though advanced to the deputyship of Ireland, knew that Elizabeth had become aware of his offer to attempt a release of Essex from his confinement before his last rash outbreak, and he was prepared to escape to the Continent on the first symptom of an attempt to arrest him; but to his agreeable surprise he received a very gracious letter from Elizabeth, in which she stated that the defection and death of Essex had caused her deep grief, but his, Mountjoy's, loyalty and success in Ireland had been a comfort to her. This had been done at the suggestion of Cecil, who represented to her that Mountjoy's loyalty might be secured by not seeming to doubt it, and it was of great consequence to have so able a general in Ireland, as the Spaniards were now meditating a descent on the coast of that island. In September, indeed, 4,000 Spaniards landed at Kinsale, under Don Juan D'Aguilar, fortified the town, and called on the people to join them against the heretic and excommunicated Queen of England, their oppressor. Whilst Mountjoy marched his forces to Kinsale and shut up the Spaniards within their own lines, Elizabeth in England summoned her last Parliament. She opened it in person on the 27th of October, but she was now so enfeebled that she was actually sinking under the weight of the robes of State, when the nobleman who stood nearest to her caught her in his arms and supported her. Notwithstanding this exhibition of her weakness, her determined will enabled her to rally and to go through the ceremony. The session was a very stormy one. The great object of calling it together was to obtain money. Money the House of Commons expressed its willingness to grant, but at the same time called for the abolition of a number of monopolies which were sapping the very vitals of the nation. These monopolies were patents granted to her courtiers, for the exclusive sale of some article of commerce. It was a custom which had commenced in the seventeenth year of her reign, and by the greediness of her favourites had grown into a monstrous abuse. Scarcely a man about her but had one or more of these monopolies in his hand, by which the price of all sorts of the necessities of life was doubled, or more than doubled. Sometimes the patentee exorcised the monopoly himself, sometimes he farmed it out to others, whose only object was to screw as much as possible out of it.
The members for counties and boroughs had been repeatedly called on by their constituents to demand the abolition of these detestable abuses; but they had been as often silenced by the ministers, on the ground that such things wore matters of prerogative, and that the queen would highly resent any touch of her prerogatives.
On the 18th of November a motion to this effect was made, which received the regular ministerial answer, with the addition that, it was useless to proceed by bill to endeavour to tie the Royal hands, because, even if it were done by both Houses, the queen could loose them at her pleasure. Cecil said that the speaker was very much to blame to admit of such a motion at the commencement of a session, knowing that it was contrary to the Royal command. But, nothing daunted, the members of the Commons replied that they had found, however useless it was to petition for the removal of these grievances, that the remedy lay in their own hands, and the patentees were such blood-suckers of the commonwealth, that the people would no longer bear the burden of them. When the list of the monopolies was read over, a member asked if bread were not amongst them. The House appeared amazed at the question. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy be found for these, bread will be there before next Parliament." Bacon and Cecil still talked loudly of prerogative, but the House went on with so much resolution, that the favourites began to tremble, and Raleigh, who had a monopoly of tar and various other commodities, saw such a storm brewing that he offered to give them all up. For four days the debate continued with such an agitation as had not been witnessed through the whole reign; and Cecil found it necessary to seem to give way, not meaning to give way an inch. On the 25th, therefore, the queen sent for the speaker, and addressed him, in the presence of the
