ELIZABETHAN ERA.

ELIZABETH ascended the throne of her sister in circumstances which, if they made a new sovereign welcome, rendered the task of that sovereign extremely arduous. Since the marriage of Mary to Philip, it almost seemed as if England were destined to become a mere dependence of Spain, unless, through the Scottish alliance, France should meanwhile succeed in making her ancient rival a province or a tributary. And whilst the national independence was seriously menaced, the national glory was mournfully tarnished. An impolitic war with Henry II. was squandering the resources of the realm, and, after two hundred years of English occupancy, the fleur de lis was once more floating from the towers of Calais. England was filled with rage and consternation. Not only was the heroic succession of ages fatally sundered, and the last trophy of Cressy and Poitiers torn from the grasp of unworthy descendants, but to excited imaginations it looked as if the keys of the Channel were lost; and who could tell but the next tidings might be that the Duke of Guise was marching by the Dover road to London? Nor was even this the largest element in the prevailing gloom. In that spiritual earthquake which had convulsed all Europe, England had been peculiarly agitated. From Romanism to Lutheranism, from Lutheranism to Henrican Popery, from the modified Popery of Henry's last years to the Calvinism of his son, and from Edward's Calvinism back to the original Romanism again, the nation had reeled and oscillated till every head was dizzy, and all the foundations were out of And now the fires of martyrdom were blazing far and From Suffolk to the Severn the land was clouded with the smoke of immolations, and resounded with wailings for its

course. near.

1

holiest and dearest citizens. Unless it were Bishop Bonner gloating over the agonies of tortured heretics, it seemed as if there were hardly one happy being in all the wretched kingdom; and one of the least happy assuredly was the conscientious but dark-minded sovereign, who shared the horrible mistake of her husband, and, believing the Saviour of mankind to be a sort of Moloch, deemed it a religious duty to act as the Pope's executioner, and the tormentor of her own subjects. The exchequer was empty; the people were dispirited; France exulted; Scotland was awaiting its opportunity; Spain was exacting and ungrateful ;—and, amidst the contempt of mankind, England had no consolation except the encomiums of the Roman pontiff welcoming the lost kingdom back to darkness and spiritual despotism. And although in these circumstances the mere death of Mary was a merciful relief to the afflicted realm, it needed no ordinary successor to retrieve the fortunes of England, and recover for the degraded kingdom her forfeited position among the powers of Europe. For such a purpose there was wanted a head as wise and wary as Alfred's to wear the crown-a hand as firm and unfaltering as that of the boldest Plantagenet to sway the sceptre. Even in that century, so rich in vigorous statesmanship and monarchical talent, it might be questioned if a ruler existed equal to such an emergency, unless it were that old and abdicated emperor who then lay dying in the cloisters of St Juste. But the crisis was met, and the glory of England was restored by a wonderful woman.

How, youthful, beautiful, and endeared by adversities, Elizabeth mounted the throne amidst the shouts of the nation; how she avowed it as her object to govern for the good of her people; how she soon made it palpable that the new sovereign was neither the partner of one foreign potentate, nor the hireling of another, nor the spiritual thrall of a third, but England's own queen; how she enforced on her judges tenderness and humanity, till the two thousand yearly executions which

THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND.

75

ensanguined the reign of her father were reduced to a fifth of the number; how she reformed her exchequer, and, whilst paying off the debts of her brother and sister, and indulging in many acts of popular munificence, how she was not only able to remit taxes voted by Parliament, and leave them uncollected, but could aid with effective largesses the Protestants of Scotland, the Huguenots of France, the emancipators of the Netherlands; how under her peaceful sway trade and manufactures flourished; how expeditions were fitted out to penetrate the Polar Seas and circumnavigate the globe; how the first year of her reign was inaugurated by a relaxation of the navigation laws, and how every subsequent year saw the harbours filled with ever-augmenting fleets of her own merchantmen; how in the Royal Exchange a commercial palace rose in the heart of London, whose precincts were destined to be the theatre of a diplomacy as deep and delicate as that which whispered mysteriously in the privy chambers of Windsor and Greenwich, but unspeakably more momentous; how new branches of industry, like the whale fishery, sprang into existence, and how England fell instant heir to the trade and commerce which Spain with suicidal hand had scared away from the ruins of Antwerp; how in corporations like the Turkey Company, and "the Company of London Merchants trading into the East Indies," were planted the germs of an empire which should render an English navy as needful in the Mediterranean and Indian Seas as in the German Ocean; and how, when danger menaced her own industrious and thriving isle, the Minerva of the peaceful arts started forth a Bellona ready for the battle ;-how all this took place, is one of the best known and most romantic pages in British history, And England can never efface from her proud and grateful recollection the glories of that reign when Cecil and Walsingham were the ministers, when Coke and Bacon were the lawyers, when Spenser was the poet, and Sidney was the soul of

chivalry; when navigators like Frobisher and Davis, sailing past the palace windows of an applauding sovereign to unknown seas, and great captains like Drake and Howard, returning from the destruction of Spanish fleets to that sovereign's smile, laid the foundations of our country's naval greatness; and when defeated armadas around, and a peaceful policy at home, prepared the way for that union of crowns which, blessed by the Most High, has consolidated into the island empire.

During the forty-five years of her reign, Elizabeth was not only the sovereign of the realm, but the temporal head of the Church of England. In that capacity also she rendered services which every temperate and fair-minded Protestant, whether a churchman or not, will cheerfully acknowledge. To the outset of her reign we are indebted for those Thirty-Nine Articles, which, for three centuries, have maintained their scriptural and evangelical testimony, unequivocal and unchanging, amidst many an inundation of opposing error; and to the same early origin must be ascribed that rich and copious Liturgy, in which the prayers and thanksgivings of millions in either hemisphere, as well as the worship of a thousand floating sanctuaries on the seas between, find language every Sabbathday. Nor was it a small kindness which the Most High conferred on this nation, nor is it a slight reason for cherishing the memory of Elizabeth, that she was induced to declare herself a Protestant at all; and thus not only was the wholesale slaughter of God's faithful servants throughout the land at once arrested, but this country's connexion with the souldestroying corruptions and abominable idolatries of the Papal Antichrist was finally rent in sunder.

Here, however, eulogy must cease, if Truth is to hold the pen. To make her a "nursing mother" to the Church, there was an essential qualification in which Elizabeth was almost entirely lacking: that qualification was personal piety. In early youth, and whilst living within occasional sight of the

THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH.

77

scaffold, her mind was not unfamiliar with serious thoughts, and her exclamation, as she sank on her knees at the announcement of her own accession, "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes," may surely be accepted as the language of genuine devotion. But amidst prosperity and flattery, Elizabeth's piety did not deepen. Every year saw her increasingly vain, arrogant, and worldly-minded; more and more childishly absorbed in pomps and pageants, stage-plays and bear-dances, low intrigues and court-scandal; and whilst less careful of her own reputation, more regardless of the conscientious convictions of others. And to specify nothing else, her disgraceful habit of profane swearing was as inconsistent with womanly decorum, as it was outrageous to all religious feeling.

Nevertheless, Elizabeth was the head of the Church, and to the management of ecclesiastical matters she brought the same business talent, the same imperious determination, and the same adroitness in bending individuals to her purposes, which in civil affairs had rendered her the paragon of king-craft. Owing mainly, however, to the want already indicated, her ecclesiastical administration was a source of frequent vexation to herself, and sowed the seeds of evils which it may still require ages to exhaust.

Elizabeth's day-dream was uniformity, and had she been content with uniformity of creed and of worship, her favourite vision might have been almost realised; for there was little in the Articles or the prayers of the Liturgy to which any of her Protestant subjects would have demurred at the commencement of her reign. But, unfortunately, a doctrinal and devotional harmony was not the agreement on which Elizabeth's mind was chiefly bent. To her habits of thought, outward uniformity was more important than any mere spiritual or sentimental identity, and, like military dress and manœuvres, she laid infinite stress on clerical costume and ecclesiastical ceremonies, and felt that the Church would never be rightly organised till every private