the other persons of ability that were employed in the course of the reign, in different capacities, may be mentioned Sir Nicholas Throckmorton ; a man," says Camden, "of a large experience, piercing judgment, and singular prudence, who discharged several embassies with a great deal of diligence and much to his praise, yet could he not be master of much wealth, nor rise higher than to those small dignities (though glorious in title) of chief cupbearer of England and chamberlain of the Exchequer; and this because he acted in favour of Leicester against Cecil, whose greatness he envied;" Sir Thomas Smith, the learned friend of Cheke, who had been one of the secretaries of state along with him under Edward VI., and held the same office again under Elizabeth for some years before his death, in 1577; and Sir Christopher Hatton, who was lord chancellor from 1587 till his death in 1591, and whom Camden, after having related his singular rise from being one of the band of gentleman pensioners, to which he was appointed by the queen, who was taken with his handsome shape and elegant dancing at a court masque, characterizes as "a great patron of learning and good sense, and one that managed that weighty part of lord chancellor with that equity and clearness of principle as to be able to satisfy his conscience and the world too." The affair to which Elizabeth first applied her attention on coming to the throne, and that in connexion with which all the transactions of her reign must be viewed, was the settlement of the national religion. The opinions of Cecil strongly concurred with her own in favour of the reformed doctrines, to which also undoubtedly the great mass of the people was attached. For a short time however she kept her intentions a secret from the majority of the council, taking her measures in concert only with Cecil and the few others who might be said to form her cabinet. She began by giving permission, by proclamation, to read part of the church service in English, but at the same time strictly prohibited the addition of any comments, and all preaching on controversial points. This however was enough to show the Catholic party what was coming; accordingly, at her coronation, on the 15th January, 1559, the bishops in general refused to assist, and it was with difficulty that one of them, Oglethorp of Carlisle, was prevailed upon to set the crown on her head. The principal alterations were reserved to be made by the parliament, which met on the 25th of this month. Of the acts which were passed, one restored to the crown the jurisdiction established in the reign of Henry VIII. over the estate ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolished all foreign powers repugnant to the same; and another restored the use of King Edward's book of common prayer, with certain alterations, that had been suggested by a royal commission over which Parker (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) presided. In accordance with this last statute public worship began to be performed in English throughout the kingdom on Whitsunday, which fell on the 8th of May. By a third act the first fruits and tenths of benefices were restored to the crown; and by a fourth, her majesty was authorized, upon the avoidance of any archbishopric or bishopric, to take certain of the revenues into her own hands; and conveyances of the temporalities by the holder for a longer term than twenty-one years or three lives were made void. The effect of these laws was generally to restore the church to the state in which it was in the reign of Edward VI., the royal supremacy sufficing for such further necessary alterations as were not expressly provided for by statute. A strong opposition was made to the bills in the House of Lords by the bishops; and fourteen of them, being the whole number, with the exception of Anthony, bishop of Llandaff, who, Camden says, was the scourge of his diocese," were now deprived for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. About 100 prebendaries, deans, archdeacons, and heads of colleges, were also ejected. The number of the inferior clergy however that held out was very small, amounting to no more than 80 rectors and other parochial ministers, out of between nine and ten thousand. On this subject it is

only necessary farther to state that the frame of ecclesiastical polity now set up, being in all essential particulars the same that still subsists, was zealously and steadily maintained by Elizabeth and her ministers to the end of her reign. The church of England has good reason to look upon her and Cecil as the true planters and rearers of its authority. They had soon to defend it against the Puritans on the one hand, as well as against the Catholics on the other; and they yielded to the former as little as to the latter. The Puritans had been growing in the country ever since the dawn of the Reformation; but they first made their appearance in any considerable force in the parliament which met in 1570. At first their attempts were met on the part of the crown by evasive measures and slight checks; but, in 1587, on four members of the House of Commons presenting to the house a bill for establishing a new Directory of public worship, Elizabeth at once gave orders that they should be seized and sent to the Tower, where they were kept some time. The High Commission Court also, which was established by a clause in one of the acts for the settlement of religion passed in the first year of her reign, was, occasionally at least, prompted or permitted to exercise its authority in the punishment of what was called heresy, and in enforcing uniformity of worship with great strictness. The determination upon which the queen acted in these matters, as she expressed it in a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, was, "that no man should be suffered to decline either to the left or to the right hand, from the drawn line limited by authority, and by her laws and injunctions." Besides the deprivation of their livings, which many of the clergy underwent for their refusal to comply with certain particulars of the established ritual, many other persons suffered imprisonment for violations of the statute of uniformity. It was against the Catholics, however, that the most severe measures were taken. By an act passed in 1585 (the 27 Eliz. c. 2) every Jesuit or other popish priest was commanded to depart from the realm within forty days, on pain of death as a traitor, and every person receiving or relieving any such priest was declared guilty of felony. Many priests were afterwards executed under this Act.

It was the struggle with popery that moved and directed nearly the whole policy of the reign, foreign as well as domestic. When Elizabeth came to the throne, she found the country at peace with Spain, the head of which kingdom had been her predecessor's husband, but at war with France, the great continental opponent of Spain and the Empire. Philip, with the view of preserving his English alliance, almost immediately after her accession, offered himself to Elizabeth in marriage; but, after deliberating on the proposal, she determined upon declining it, swayed by various considerations, and especially, as it would appear, by the feeling that by consenting to marry her sister's husband on a dispensation from the pope, she would in a manner be affirming the lawfulness of her father's marriage with Catharine of Aragon, the widow of his brother Arthur, and condemning his subsequent marriage with her own mother, the sole validity of which rested on the alleged illegality of that previous connexion. A general peace, however, comprehending all the three powers, and also Scotland, was established in April, 1559 by the treaty of Cateau Cambresis. By this treaty it was agreed that Calais, which had been taken by France in the time of Queen Mary, and formed the only difficult subject of negotiation, should be restored to England in eight years, if no hostile act should be committed by Elizabeth within that period. Scarcely, however, had this compact been signed, when the war was suddenly rekindled, in consequence of the assumption by the new French king, Francis II., of the arms and royal titles of England, in right, as was pretended, of his wife, the young Mary, queen of Scots. Elizabeth instantly resented this act of hostility by sending a body of 5000 troops to Scotland, to act there with the Duke of Chatelherault and the lords of the

congregation, as the leaders of the Protestant party called themselves, against the government of the queen and her mother, the Regent, Mary of Guise. The town of Leith soon yielded to this force; and the French king was speedily compelled both to renounce his wife's pretensions to the English throne and to withdraw his own troops from Scotland, by the treaty of Edinburgh, executed 7th July, 1560. The treaty however never was ratified either by Francis or his queen; and in consequence the relations between the three countries continued in an unsatisfactory state. Charles IX. succeeded his brother on the throne of France before the end of this year; and in a few months afterwards Mary of Scotland returned to her own country. Meanwhile, although the two countries continued at peace, Elizabeth's proceedings in regard to the church had wholly alienated Philip of Spain. The whole course of events and the position which she occupied had already in fact caused the English queen to be looked upon as the head of the Protestant interest throughout Europe as much as she was at home. When the dispute therefore between the Catholics and the Huguenots or reformed party in France came to a contest of arms, in 1562, the latter immediately applied for assistance to Elizabeth, who concluded a treaty with them, and sent them succour both in men and money. The war that followed produced no events of importance in so far as England was concerned, and was terminated by a treaty signed at Troyes, 11th April, 1564. A long period followed, during which England preserved in appearance the ordinary relations of peace both with France and Spain, though interferences repeatedly took place on each side that all but amounted to actual hostilities. The Protestants alike in Scotland, in France, and in the Netherlands (then subject to the dominion of Philip), regarded Elizabeth as firmly bound to their cause by her own interests; and she on her part kept a watchful eye on the religious and political contentions of all these countries, with a view to the maintenance and support of the Protestant party, by every species of countenance and aid short of actually making war in their behalf. With the Protestant government in Scotland, which had deposed and imprisoned the queen, she was in open and intimate alliance; in favour of the French Huguenots she at one time negotiated or threatened, at another even went the length, scarcely with any concealment, of affording them pecuniary assistance; and when the people of the Netherlands at length rose in revolt against the oppressive government of Philip, although she refused the sovereignty of their country, which they offered to her, she lent them money, and in various other ways openly expressed her sympathy and good will. On the other hand, Philip, although he refrained from any declaration of war, and the usual intercourse both commercial and political long went on between the two countries without interruption, was incessant in his endeavours to undermine the throne of the English queen and the order of things at the head of which she stood, by instigating plots and commotions against her authority within her own dominions. He attempted to turn to account in this way the Catholic interest, which was still so powerful both in England and in Ireland-the intrigues of the Scottish queen and her partizans materially contributing to the same end. The history of Mary Stewart and of the affairs of Scotland during her reign and that of her son must be reserved for a separate article. But it is necessary to observe here, that Mary was not merely the head of the Catholic party in Scotland, but as the descendant of the eldest daughter of Henry VII., had pretensions to the English crown which were of a very formidable kind. Although she was kept in confinement by the English government after her flight from the hands of her own subjects in 1568, the imprisonment of her person did not extinguish the hopes or put an end to the efforts of her adherents. Repeated rebellions in Ireland, in some instances openly aided by supplies from Spain -the attempt made by the duke of Alva in 1569, through the agency of Vitelli, to

concert with the Catholic party the scheme of an invasion of Eugland-the rising of the Catholics of the northern counties under the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland the same year-the plot of the duke of Norfolk with Ridolfi in 1571, for which that unfortunate nobleman lost his head-the plots of Throgmorton and Creichton in 1584, and of Babington in 1586-to omit several minor attempts of the same kind-all testified the restless zeal with which the various enemies of the established order of things pursued their common end. Meanwhile, however, events were tending to a crisis which was to put an end to the outward show of friendship that had been so long kept up between parties that were not only fiercely hostile in their hearts, but had even been constantly working for each other's overthrow behind the thin screen of their professions and courtesies. The queen of Scots was put to death in 1587, by an act of which it is easier to defend the state policy than either the justice or the legality. By this time also, although no actual declaration of war had yet proceeded either from England or Spain, the cause of the people of the Netherlands had been openly espoused by Elizabeth, whose general, the earl of Leicester, was now at the head of the troops of the United Provinces, as the revolted states called themselves. An English fleet at the same time attacked and ravaged the Spanish settlements in the West Indies. At last, in the summer of 1588, the great Spanish fleet, arrogantly styled the Invincible Armada, sailed for the invasion of England, and was in the greater part dashed to pieces on the coasts which it came to assail. From this time hostilities proceeded with more or less activity between the two countries during the remainder of the reign of Elizabeth. Meanwhile Henry III., and, after his assassination in 1589, the young king of Navarre, assuming the title of Henry IV., at the head of the Huguenots, had been maintaining a desperate contest in France with the duke of Guise and the League. For some years Elizabeth and Philip remained only spectators of the struggle; but at length they were both drawn to take a principal part in it. The French war, however, in so far as Elizabeth was concerned, must be considered as only another appendage to the war with Spain; it was Philip chiefly, and not the League, that she opposed in France; just as in the Netherlands, and formerly in Scotland, it was not the cause of liberty against despotism, or of revolted subjects against their legitimate sovereign, that she supported, or even the cause of Protestantism against Catholicism, but her own cause against Philip, her own right to the English throne against his, or that of the competitor with whom he took part. Since the death of Mary of Scotland, Philip professed to consider himself as the rightful king of England, partly on the ground of his descent from John of Gaunt, partly in consequence of Mary having by her will bequeathed her pretensions to him should her son persist in remaining a heretic. Henry IV. having previously embraced Catholicism, made peace with Philip by the treaty of Vervins, concluded in May, 1598; and the death of Philip followed in September of the same year. But the war between England and Spain was nevertheless still kept up. In 1601 Philip III. sent a force to Ireland, which landed in that country and took the town of Kinsale; and the following year Elizabeth retaliated by fitting out a naval expedition against her adversary, which captured some rich prizes, and otherwise annoyed the Spaniard. Her forces continued to act in conjunction with those of the Seven United Provinces both by sea and land.

Elizabeth died on the 24th of March, 1603, in the 70th year of her age and the forty-fifth of her reign.

172.-MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

PENNY CYCLOPÆDIA. Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, was born on the 7th December, 1542. She was the third child of King James V. of Scotland, by his wife Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the Duke of Guise, who had previously borne her husband two sons, both of whom died in infancy. A report prevailed that Mary too was not likely to live; but being unswaddled by her nurse at the desire of her anxious mother, in presence of the English ambassador, the latter wrote to his court that she was as goodly a child as he had seen of her age. At the time of her birth her father lay sick in the palace of Falkland; and in the course of a few days after, he expired, at the early age of thirty, his death being hastened by distress of mind, occasioned by the defeats which his nobles had sustained at Fala and Solway Moss. James was naturally a person of considerable energy and vigour both of mind and body, but previous to his death he fell into a state of listlessness and despondency, and after his decease it was found that he had made no provision for the care of the infant princess, or for the administration of the government. The ambitious Beatoun seized this opportunity, and producing a testament which he pretended was that of the late king, immediately assumed the office and title of regent. The fraud was soon discovered; but by the haste and imprudence of the regent Arran and Henry VIII. of England, who wished a marriage agreed to between his son and the young queen, Beatoun regained his influence in the country; and on the 9th of September 1543, Mary was crowned by the archbishop, who was also immediately afterwards appointed lord high chancellor of the kingdom. He had even the address to win over the regent Arran to his views, both political and religious; and thus the French or Roman Catholic party obtained the ascendancy. The first two years of Mary's life was spent at Linlithgow, in the royal palace of which she was born; she was then removed to Stirling castle; and when the disputes of parties in the country rendered this a somewhat dangerous residence, she was carried to Inchmahome, a sequestered island in the Lake of Monteith, where she remained about two years. In the meantime a treaty of marriage had been concluded between her and the dauphin Francis; and in terms of the treaty it was resolved she should be sent into France to be educated at the French court, until the nuptials could be solemnized. Accordingly in the fifth year of her age she was taken to Dumbarton, where she was put on board the French fleet; and setting sail towards the end of July, 1548, she was, after a tempestuous voyage, landed on the 14th of August at Brest, whence she proceeded by easy stages to the palace at St. Germaine-en-Laye. At every town in her progress she was received with all the honours due to her royal rank, and as a mark of respect and joy the prisons were thrown open and the prisoners set free.

Soon after her arrival at her destination, Mary was placed with the French king's own daughters in one of the first convents of the kingdom, where she made such rapid progress in the acquisition of the literature and accomplishments of the age, that when visiting her in the end of the year 1550, her mother, Mary of Guise, with her Scottish attendants, burst into tears of joy. She did not however remain long in this situation. Perceiving the bent of her mind to the society and occupations of a nunnery, which did not accord with the ambitious projects entertained by he uncles of Lorraine, they soon brought her to the court, which, as Robertson observes, was one of the politest but most corrupt in Europe. Here Mary became the envy of her sex, surpassing the most accomplished in the elegance and fluency of her language, the grace and liveliness of her movements, and the charm of her whole