Elizabeth looked with sardonic satisfaction, feeling that she herself was incapable of such folly. There was just one man among her many suitors whom Elizabeth would have cared to marry, Dudley, Earl of Leicester. But to have married a subject would have lowered the prestige of her crown in Europe; and she cared more for the crown than for the man. She even proposed that Mary should marry Leicester, in order that by wedding a Protestant Mary might be discredited in the eyes of Catholics. She was willing that the man whom she loved should marry her rival, in order that her rival might be politically ruined. That was a sacrifice of which Mary was incapable. But there was this great difference as to their aims. Elizabeth flirted, and lied, and swore, and maltreated her agents, generally to win some advantage for the nation; Mary committed her misdeeds mainly to gratify her own selfish ambition. For Scotland she scarcely cared at all. She wanted husbands, as Elizabeth wanted admirers, for political ends but Mary was capable of being in love with her husbands, whereas Elizabeth chiefly cared that her admirers should be in love with her. Woe betide them if, being unable to marry the Queen, they ventured to marry anyone else! She gave

out early in her reign that, so far as her own inclination went, she desired to remain unmarried. She was perhaps sincere in this; but assuredly she did not wish it to be believed. It is perhaps worth while adding that Elizabeth has left us one or two 1 See Spenser's Faery Queene (1. ix. 13–17).

beautiful orations, and Mary has left us one beautiful prayer (see Appendix).

Putting Mary of Scots in prison was probably a mistake. It made a martyr of her, and added the glamour of romance to a cause which was recognized as the cause of the Church of Rome. Thrilling reports of imaginary sufferings spread over Europe; and a chivalrous enthusiasm for a persecuted woman augmented devotion to the Roman See, where such devotion existed, and was a substitute for it, where it did not. Men might or might not care for the Pope, but the name of the imprisoned Mary Stuart was always something to conjure with. It is remarkable that all the serious attacks on Elizabeth's throne and life, from the Northern rebellion downwards, were subsequent to her making a prisoner of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Probably no one knew then to what extent Mary really was dangerous; but it was certain that nothing but her death would render success impossible; Ne pereat Israel, pereat Absalom, as Sir Chris. Hatton said to the House of Commons; and Elizabeth's devoted minister, Walsingham, set himself to compass her removal. She was to be allowed to compromise herself so hopelessly, that she would be convicted of treason and brought to the block. No one since Wolsey had such intimate knowledge of continental intrigues as Walsingham. He had spies in every court in Europe, and knew all that was going on. It was said of him that "he heard in London what was whispered in the ear at Rome,"

and that "to him men's faces spake as much as their tongues, and their countenances were indexes to their hearts." In her close confinement at Tutbury, Mary was induced to believe that she could outwit her keepers and correspond with conspirators outside. All the letters came to Walsing

ham, and revealed a plot "to remove the beast that troubles the world," i.e. to kill Elizabeth. John Ballard, a Jesuit, and Ant. Babington, were the chief plotters. Elizabeth risked assassination for some weeks in order that the plot might ripen. Then the net closed, and Mary was convicted of treason, 25th October 1586. Elizabeth was most unwilling to act. She shrank alike from putting Mary to death, and from refusing to put her to death.1 At last she was induced to sign the death-warrant; and then she begged that it might not be used. Could not Mary be got rid of in some other way? The Council sent the warrant to Fotheringay, whither Mary had been removed, and she was beheaded 8th February 1587. Elizabeth pretended to be overwhelmed with grief and indignation. By fining and imprisoning the Secretary, Davison, who had charge of the warrant, she tried

1 "I hope," she said to Parliament, "you do not look for any present resolution from me for my manner is, in matters of less moment than this, to deliberate long upon that which is but once to be resolved. Whatever the best of subjects may expect from the best princes, that expect from me to be performed to the full." See her letter to James, protesting her innocence of his mother's death (Ellis, Original Letters, iii. p. 22). She spent £321, 14s. 6d. on Mary's funeral.

to persuade the world that she was not responsible for Mary's death. In this she has quite failed.

There is one more attack upon Elizabeth and her religion to be mentioned. Mary Stuart had sent word to Philip of Spain that she transferred to him her claim to the crown of England; and Philip's daughter already had some claim, as being descended from John of Gaunt. The Invincible Armada sailed the year after Mary's death. It was a supreme effort on the part of Roman Catholicism to overthrow the sovereign who was regarded as the head of Protestantism, and the nation which was regarded as its chief support. "Come let us kill her, and the

inheritance shall be ours."

Elizabeth was again at her best in repelling the attack.1 Her words at Tilbury Fort kindle enthusiasm still. The end for which she had quibbled and been guilty of every kind of inconsistency and meanness, in order to gain time for her subjects to find their bearings, had been accomplished. When the increasing strength of England provoked the great assault from Spain, it was a united nation

1 Bacon, in his Praise of the Queen, says of her: "When her realm was to have been invaded by an army, the setting forth whereof was the terror and wonder of Europe, it was not seen that her cheer, her fashion, her ordinary manner, was anything altered; not a cloud of that storm did appear in that countenance wherein peace doth ever shine; but with excellent assurance and advised security she inspired her council, animated her nobility, redoubled the courage of her people; still having this noble apprehension, not only that she would communicate her fortune with them, but that it was she that would protect them, and not they her."

that leapt up to repel it. Romanists fought side by side with Anglicans and Independents to beat down. the arrogance of a Romanist Monarch, when he attempted to execute the Pope's sentence of deposition on their Queen. The Armada was the shock. which crystallized the fluid elements in England into solidity; and in the consciousness of the strength of union Elizabeth's subjects forgot how often she had exasperated them by her caprices and her evasions of all decided action. Their amazing success against the Spaniard they attributed to her; and on the medal which commemorated the defeat of the Armada they put the inscription, dux femina facti, “It was a woman that led us to victory." Elizabeth's own medal had a humbler inscription: Deus flavit et dissipati sunt,-doubtless an echo of the text chosen by the preacher (John Piers, Bishop of Sarum, afterwards Archbishop of York), when she went in state to St. Paul's to give thanks: "Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters."

We must pass on to the other great movement which troubled the Church of England in the days of Elizabeth, and for many generations after her time. This may be called the Ultra-Reformation, the persistent attempt of the Puritans, who were almost invariably Calvinist in doctrine, to capture the Church of England and reform it past all recognition. Every link which connected it, not merely