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 died before her. The rising generation was all looking towards her successor, and that could only be King James of Scotland, whom she cordially hated, and whom she knew to be incapable of continuing her work. The Church of England, which she had nursed, was indeed safe; but the Puritan party within it was growing, and was strong even in Parliament. All this foretold that seventeenth-century England would have plenty of troubles to face, though no such dangers from foreign foes and religious strife as had threatened it during the seventy years of Elizabeth's life and the forty-five of her reign. She died at Richmond in the seventieth year of her age in 1603.

Greater, perhaps, than all the other glories of the reign of Elizabeth is the glory that, in her early years, was born at a little town

(Warwickshire) the greatest poet of all time, William Shakespeare. Elizabeth used to boast that she was ‘mere English’; Shakespeare, whose genius sought the subjects of his plays in all countries and in all periods of history, was at heart, and in his art, as mere English as his Queen. His characters may wear the dresses, and bear the names of ancient Romans, of Bohemians, Danes or Moors, but their language and their thoughts are those of the Englishmen of Shakespeare's own day.

  