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ELI government, had rendered probable. But the governing power in France was not to be on the side of the reformed faith. Francis I., though he had once threatened to separate his dominions from the papacy, and to set up an independent patriarchate, lived to commit himself, for purely political reasons, to atrocious schemes of persecution. His son, Henry II., followed his example. His grandson, Francis II., continued the same policy. In the train of these tendencies came the reign of Charles IX. and the Bartholomew massacre. On the other hand, the Spanish Netherlands threw off the yoke of Philip, and declared themselves protestants. The foreign policy of Elizabeth was to assist these struggling communities by influence, by counsel, by treasure, and by other means, according to circumstances. The same course was taken towards Scotland. The reformers in that country found a wise and steady ally in the English queen.

How far this policy was the result of a true sympathy with the free spirit of protestantism; and how far it sprang from knowing that the enemies of her crown, intent upon wresting it from her under any pretext, were the enemies of protestantism—are questions we cannot answer. But that the latter feeling had much to do with it, can hardly be doubted. Elizabeth's great danger in this form came from Mary Queen of Scots. Mary was descended from Margaret, queen of Scotland, eldest sister to Henry VIII. From five years old she was resident in France, where she became the wife of Francis II. The father of Francis, Henry II., had insisted from the time of Mary Tudor's decease, that Mary of Scotland had a better claim to the throne of England than Elizabeth; and, on all public occasions, Mary and Francis assumed the arms of England along with those of France. But Mary soon became a widow. Ceasing to be queen in France, she returned to Scotland, where she was entitled to that rank. But in Scotland she found herself exposed to the resolute temper and proceedings of the reformers. Her marriage with Darnley, and then with Bothwell who had murdered him, led to her imprisonment by her subjects: and her escape from her prison ended in the defeat of her followers at Langside, and placed her as a captive in the hands of Elizabeth. This happened in 1568; and during the next eighteen years the Scottish queen was the centre, consciously or unconsciously, of a succession of conspiracies, intended to secure her liberation and her elevation to the throne of Elizabeth.

In 1571, Pius V. in his communications with Charles IX. and the court of France, urged by every influence within his power the utter extermination of the protestants of that kingdom. His holiness was at the same time most earnestly engaged in stimulating a formidable conspiracy in Great Britain and Ireland against Elizabeth, and in favour of the queen of Scots. He issued a bull which denounced the queen of England as a depraved woman, deprived her of the rights of sovereignty, absolved her subjects from their allegiance, and pronounced all persons who should abet her power excommunicated. Pius, according to the report of one of his warm friends and admirers, thinking on the one hand to succour and liberate the Scottish queen, and on the other to restore the catholic faith in England, and, at some moment, to take off Elizabeth—that foul source of so many evils—deputed parties in this kingdom to give him an account of the proceedings of the heretics and of the catholics, and to encourage the latter in efforts to replace their worship in this country. Ridolfi, an Italian agent, disguised as a merchant, pursued his machinations so effectually in England, that the greatest part of the nobles entered into a confederacy, and chose the duke of Norfolk for their leader, to whom they promised the queen of Scots in marriage. It is certain that Mary was privy to these proceedings, was a party to them, and was prepared to become the wife of Norfolk if the conspiracy should prove successful. During many years the lives of Elizabeth and her ministers could not be said to be safe for an hour. Jesuit emissaries filled the land with their machinations. But the life so precious to England and to protestant Christendom was not to be shortened by their means. Mary, who had been so evidently a party to the great conspiracy of 1572, was as clearly implicated in the Babington conspiracy of 1586. Her life, justly or unjustly, was the forfeiture of this last experiment.

The national apprehension, lest the Scottish queen should succeed Elizabeth, and the horrors which had marked the reign of the first Mary should be renewed under a second, had scarcely subsided, when rumours came of hostile preparations in Spain, and England had to put herself in order, to deal with the memorable Spanish armada. For three years past, Spain had been employed in giving vastness and the highest possible efficiency to this armament. No such force had been brought together against England since the day on which William the Norman embarked at the mouth of the Dive to effect his landing at Pevensey. But this second grand scheme of conquest was not to be successful. The heart of the English nation was sound and loyal. The skill and courage of British seamen were favoured by a merciful Providence. Caution, stratagem, and bravery combined to send confusion and disaster into the most compact forces of the enemy, and the elements completed what had been thus commenced. The corpses of the foe only were seen upon our shores. Not a man was allowed to pollute the soil with his footprint. It was left to a shattered remnant of that great navy to pursue their flight homewards, there to tell the tale of losses never to be repaired, and of a shame never to be forgotten.

The later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in common with the earlier, were years of tranquillity. Her enemies, for more than a generation past, had done their worst, and had failed. Her position among the sovereigns in English history is prominent and commanding. Mary was the first female who had wielded the sceptre of this country, and her sister was to supply a model of female supremacy which it would be hard for another of her sex to surpass. The person of Elizabeth was stately and commanding. Her features, if not handsome, possessed attraction, as bespeaking intelligence and other high qualities. Her manner on public occasions was dignified and queenly, though she could sometimes blend the familiar and the playful even with state ceremonies. Her temper was at times high, haughty, and resentful, but it rarely became such without a reason. Though a woman, she had to rule a great nation, to rule it alone, and she seemed disposed to make it felt that her hand was strong—equal to that high function. She was many times solicited to marry, and her subjects, looking to the probabilities of the future, might well be desirous to see her take that step. But she was to die the "virgin queen." Nevertheless, her woman's heart found its charms in the society of the other sex. Men of rank and accomplishments were always about her, and such as were in her favour were allowed to address her in language of admiration, such as discreet lovers are wont to address to their mistresses. This foible of womanhood has been costly to her reputation. Her Romanist calumniators have founded all kinds of foul charges or insinuations upon it. No protestant of intelligence and candour attaches the slightest weight to these; but among catholics, especially on the continent, they have been widely credited. The traducers have followed her even to her last hours, and have made these such as they wished them to have been, or imagined they should have been. Her literary tastes, which she had cultivated amidst the troubles of her early life, were not abandoned when her thoughts became occupied with the rule of a kingdom. She never ceased to take pleasure in reading "the best and wisest histories." When beyond middle life she made translations from Boethius, Sallust, Horace, and Tacitus. When sixty-five years of age she translated some of Plutarch's Lives into English. Of course her example greatly influenced the literature of her age. A Polish ambassador, addressing her in Latin, used expressions which excited her displeasure, and Elizabeth extemporized a reply in the same language, rebuking him for his fault. Like her father, Elizabeth was vain of the loyalty of her subjects. She had a sound English heart, and was proud in the feeling that her throne was made stable by the affections of such hearts. This feeling, though it did not prevent some appearances of harshness in her administration, did much to check tendencies of that nature. The position taken by the Anglican church after the accession of Elizabeth, a position so much more mediaeval and erastian than had been retained by the protestant churches on the continent, rendered it inevitable that there should be a grand schism ere long among English protestants—the schism which separated between Anglicans and puritans, and which has raged on with such fluctuating results from that day to the present. The English church is substantially what she was as moulded by Elizabeth, but the English nation has not been thus stationary.

Elizabeth could school her house of commons upon occasion, as she could school everybody else; but, on the whole, she was on good terms with her parliaments. Her habits were economical, and her wise ministers encouraged her disposition not to make any demand on the resources of her people that should not