Elizabeth,

e, the most pious and best of mothers, had left only a great blood-spot upon the page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be the most wise, prosperous and great, the Kingdom had ever known. In her complex character there was the imperiousness, audacity and unscrupulousness of

ls without mercy, she ardently desired the welfare of her Kingdom, which she ruled with extraordinary moderation

e obsequious apologies to the Pope were withdrawn, but the Reformation she was going to espouse, was not the fiery one being fought for in Germany and France. It was mild, moderate, and like her father's, more p

holicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in

nd they finally separated themselves altogether from a Church in which so much of Papacy still lingered, to establish one upon simpler a

inate. Her love of adulation and passion for display, her caprice, duplicity, and her reckless love- affairs

, his father, was a mighty King, ruler over Spain and the Netherlands, and was at the head of Catholic Europe. He saw in this vain, silly young Queen of Eng

ht, that beneath that surface of folly there was a nature hard as steel, and a calm, clear, cool intelligence, for which his own would be no match, and which would one day hold in check the diplomacy of the "Escurial" and outwit that of Europe. She adored the culture brought by the "new learning;" delighted in the society of Sir Philip Sidney, who reflected all that was best in England o

not understand, the expansion which was going on in the spirit of the people; but instinctively realized the

e of her profound political instincts, which taught her the danger of alienating that class upon which the greatness of her Kingdom rested. She realized the truth forgotten by some of her successors, that the Sovereign and the middle class must be friends. She might resist and insult he

power of that body in dealing more and more with matters supposed to belong exclusively to the Crown, as for instance in the struggle made by the Commons to suppress monopolies in trade, granted by royal prerogative. At th

brilliant triumphs in diplomacy. And when the bald, unmitigated lie was at last found out, she felt not th

St. Bartholomew's, 15

6. Colonizatio

the Huguenots in France, and to stem the persecutions of Philip in the Netherlands, and committed England fully to a cause for which she felt no enthusiasm. She encouraged every branch of industry, commerce, trade, fostered everything which would lead to prosperity. Listened t

rone of England. The only relation she had in the world was her c

marriage with Henry VIII. was invalidated by the refusal of the Pope to sanction the divorce. Mary Stuart, who stood next to Elizabeth in the su

the incessant struggle against English encroachments, she had drawn into close friendship with France, which country used her for its ow

Field 1513. Birth o

ish King, turned to his old ally. He was killed at "Flodden Field," after suffering a crushing defeat. His successor, James V., had maried Mary Guise. Her family was the head and front of the ultra Catholic party in France, and her counsels p

es made no compromises with Protestants! Mary Guise, who was now Regent of the realm, had no desire for a closer union with Protestant England, and very much desired a nearer alliance with her own France. M

y Stuart Retur

een spent in the most corrupt and profligate of Courts, under the combined influence of Catharine de Medici, the worst woman in Europe,- and her two uncles of the House of Guise, who were little better. Politic

rival there is little doubt, but that she was exasperated at her pretensions and at the audacious plottings against her life

husband, Lord Darnley, (her cousin, Henry Stuart), she quickly married the man to whom the deed was directly traced. Her marriage wit

s because she would not lose the power of compelling men to make love to her."

ary Stuart's

, we realize what her usurpation would have meant for England, and feel that she was a menace to the State, and justly incurred her fate. Then again, when we hear of her gentle patience in her long captivity, her prayers and piety, and her sublime courage when she wal

ous for his own ambitious purposes, and sent an Armada (fleet) which approached the Coast in the form of a great Crescent, one mile across. The little English "seadogs," not much larger than small pleasure yachts, were led by Sir Francis Drake. They worried the ponderous Span

e: Franc

nd such an era of peace and prosperity, with all the conditions of living so improved that the dreams of Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" seemed almost realized. The new culture was everywhere. England was garlanded with poetry, and lighted by genius, such as the world has not seen

harbor the suspicion that she was accessory to this deed; and yet we cannot forget that she was the daughter of Henry VIII.!-and sometimes wonder if the memory of a crime as black as Mary

o the irony of fate, named the son of Mary