Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/57

 earnest. Elizabeth's reign had been, as it then seemed to all Englishmen, and as in very many respects it was, the golden age of Britain. Never had art, and literature, and material prosperity, risen to so high a level. The world seemed opening to a new and glorious life, like a rose bursting into bloom. In literature it had been the age of Shakespeare and Bacon. But with the Stuarts, literature and art passed into a long eclipse. Shakespeare's light may be said to have gone out for a hundred years, to be lighted again only from the borrowed torch of German culture.

Let us suppose that Elizabeth had been able to find a consort as wise and as harmless as was Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Let us suppose that the pair had left behind them a thoroughly English prince, their own son, a man who would have been capable of continuing Elizabeth's prudent rule and of holding England to its traditions