Note 189 — Chapter III
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Camden, after telling us that the queen's disinclination to marry raised great clamours, and that the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester had professed their opinion that she ought to be obliged to take a husband, or that a successor should be declared by act of parliament even against her will, asserts some time after, as inconsistently as improperly, that "very few but malcontents and traitors appeared very solicitous in the business of a successor."—P. 401 (in Kennet's Complete Hist. of England, vol. ii.). This, however, from Camden's known proneness to flatter James, seems to indicate that the Suffolk party were more active than the Scots upon this occasion. Their strength lay in the House of Commons, which was wholly protestant, and rather puritan.
At the end of Murden's State Papers is a short journal kept by Cecil, containing a succinct and authentic summary of events in Elizabeth's reign. I extract as a specimen such passages as bear on the present subject.
October 6, 1566. Certain lewd bills thrown abroad against the queen's majesty for not assenting to have the matter of succession proved in parliament; and bills also to charge Sir W. Cecil, the secretary, with the occasion thereof.
27. Certain lords, viz., the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, were excluded the presence-chamber for furthering the proposition of the succession to be declared by parliament without the queen's allowance.
November 12. Messrs. Bell and Monson moved trouble in the parliament about the succession.
14. The queen had before her thirty lords and thirty commoners, to receive her answer concerning their petition for the succession and for marriage. Dalton was blamed for speaking in the Commons' house.
24. Command given to the parliament not to treat of the succession.
Nota: in this parliament time the queen's majesty did remit a part of the offer of a subsidy to the Commons, who offered largely, to the end to have had the succession established. P. 762.