ELIZABETH, the only surviving child of Henry VIII. by Anne Boleyn, was born at the palace of Placentia (Greenwich), September 7, 1533. In her third year she was deprived of her mother, and was also declared illegitimate; but in 1544 she was conditionally restored; and from that time until the death of Edward VI. she was apparently well treated. She joined her sister Mary in opposing the usurpation of Lady Jane Grey, and accompanied the queen on her entry into London. Little cordiality, however, could be expected to subsist between them; Elizabeth was looked upon as the hope of the Protestant party, and, being suspected of fa

vouring the rebellion of Wyatt, she was sent to the Tower, but after a short time was released, probably by the desire of Philip of Spain. She was, however, soon placed under restraint again, and dwelt in a confinement more or less rigorous, according to the various tempers of her different keepers, until called to the throne by the death of Mary, Nov. 17, 1558.

It was the general expectation of both friends and foes that Elizabeth would reverse the religious policy of her sister; and she very soon proceeded to do so. Her principal adviser was Sir William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burghley "), who took his

attracted the attention of the king, and became a courtier. Cecil served in the Scottish war under the Protector Somerset ; became secretary of state to Edward VI.; so temporized in the matter of Lady Jane Grey, as not to be committed with either party; and complied with the change of religion under Mary, though he still kept up a good understanding with the Princess Elizabeth. On her accession he again changed his religious profession. He was named her secretary of state even before she set out for London, and he at once sub

measures with so much address that all opposition was borne down, and an apparent conformity brought about with very little trouble; but it needed all the firmness of three successive primates (Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift), to prevent the Church being reduced to a mere creature of the State, a scheme most agreeable to the arbitrary temper of the queen, who entertained as high ideas of her ecclesiastical supremacy as Henry VIII. had ever done.

tries; their arts were retorted by men as unscrupulous as themselves, and many determined attempts were made both against her government and her life, but all these efforts were signally unsuccessful".

Elizabeth sent aid to the French Protestants on several occasions, but without any very important results. Her interference in Scotland was of a more decided character, the affairs of that country being in reality directed by her ministers. Mainly by their intrigues Elizabeth's relations with foreign the ill-advised, unhappy, but probably powers were, during the whole course not guilty Mary, was driven from her of her reign, surrounded with difficul- throne. She sought shelter in Engties connected with the subject of reli- land; and though she found instead gion. At her accession the reigning a prison, and eventually a violent pope (Paul IV.) refused to acknowledge death, her coming had most imher title; Philip of Spain professed portant consequences, for the Ropersonal regard, but gave it to be un-manists, who had hitherto accepted derstood that he could only continue in friendship with her if she continued a Catholic; and the king of France (Henry II.) induced his daughter-inlaw, Mary of Scotland, to assume the style and arms of queen of England; on the other hand, the Protestants of France, Scotland, and the Netherlands looked to her for support against the tyranny of their sovereigns, as well in civil as religious matters. Whatever her own intentions may have been, the "Machiavel-governance" of her ministers, not confined to secret dealings with Romanists and Puritans at home, aggravated the troubles of other coun

mitted to her "a device for alteration of religion," in which he recommended a systematic discouragement of all who had been in authority under Queen Mary, and supplying their place with "men meaner in substance and younger in years," the involving the clergy in a præmunire, and "a sharp law" against popular assemblies. The plan was adopted, and at first seemed successful; but many men were found, both Romanists and Puritans, who refused to follow his example of adapting their consciences to every change of government; nor could the many 'sharp laws that were devised by him bring them to conformity. In the midst of the cares of state, Cecil was far from neglectful of his own interest. He was ennobled, as Lord Burghley, in 1571, and afterwards made lord high treasurer; and he succeeded in raising a vast estate, great part of it, as was too usual with the courtiers of the later Tudors, wrung by way of inequitable exchange from the Church. He died Aug. 4, 1598.

"

Such is the term used by Archbishop Parker, in letters to Cecil, as fittest to describe the secret favour given by members of the government to both Romanists and Puritans, whilst the bishops were compelled to coerce them, making both themselves and their order odious.

Most of these plots were foiled by the sagacity of Sir Francis Walsingham, who was for many years secretary of state, and who, by foreign travel,

Elizabeth as queen, now began to look to foreign powers for support, which they hoped to obtain by her means, and in return many shewed themselves ready to accept her as their sovereign.

The Romanists had, indeed, some time before begun to decline attendance at church, moved by the exhortations of William Allen', and of priests who had gone abroad on the re-establishment of the English Liturgy, but about 1563 had ventured to return, and who then spread among them a censure of the Council of Trent on such conformity. Allen, too, founded a se

had imbibed much of the dark and dangerous policy of his opponents. He was born at Chiselhurst, in Kent, in 1536; was educated at King's College, Cambridge; went abroad on the accession of Mary, thus became an accomplished linguist, and was employed on the most important embassies to France and Scotland. He was rewarded with the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, but he was not a favourite with Elizabeth, for he belonged to the Puritan party, and, unlike his patron Burghley, he remained a poor man. He died April 6,

1590.

The guilt or innocence of the Scottish queen has frequently been made almost a national question, and innumerable writers have employed their powers upon it; all their researches, however, only confirm the propriety of the remark of a contemporary (Camden), who says, "There are many sus picions, but no proofs."

He was born in Lancashire in 1532. He studied at Oxford, was principal at St. Mary's Hall there in the time of Mary, and withdrew to the continent on her death. He resided principally in Flanders, and is accused of being deeply engaged in the various plots against Elizabeth. He was made a cardinal in 1587, wrote an Admonition in favour of the projected Spanish invasion, and was rewarded by Philip with the archbishopric of Mechlin. He died in 1594.

minary at Douays, to which the young | more eminent of them of their prefermen of their best families were sent, ments; but this only induced them where many became priests, and where to form separate congregations, which all appear to have imbibed opinions cer- at length became the objects of the tainly hostile to the queen's ecclesias- rigour of the laws equally with the tical supremacy, and little favourable Romanists. Many of the Puritans, to her civil government. Severe laws as they came to be contemptuously were in consequence enacted, but they termed, who had been exiles in the rather irritated than subdued the body time of Mary, had imbibed abroad against which they were directed; and, a democratic spirit, which soon exthough near 200 Jesuits and other tended itself among their party, and priests and their adherents suffered as rendered them willing to proceed to traitors, the enterprise they had set any lengths against the Church. They before themselves, of endeavouring to were favoured, from interested motives, restore Romanism, was never aban- by the unprincipled Leicester; and doned b. others, but repressed by the queen, who perceived that, humanly speaking, the Church and the State must stand or fall together.

Troubles had before arisen in another direction, and, being unwisely met, grew every day more serious. Many learned and pious men (especially some who had been exiles in Germany or at Geneva) expressed themselves dissatisfied with certain points in the discipline of the Church, which to them savoured too much of Romanism, though fairly defensible on the grounds of decency and order. It was attempted to overcome such scruples by depriving some of the

The college was dedicated to St. Thomas Becket. It subsisted till the first French revolution, when the members removed to England, and established a house which still subsists at Old Hall Green, near Standon, in Hertfordshire; the patron saint, however, was changed to Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury. Other seminaries for the English were in the course of a few years established at Reims, St. Omer, Rome, Paris, Madrid, and elsewhere, the members of which took an oath to return to England, when ordered by their superiors, "to convert the souls of their countrymen and kindred."

Campion, the Jesuit, one of the earliest papal missionaries, wrote thus to the queen's council: "Be it known unto you, that we have made a league, all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must overreach all the practices of England, cheerfully to carry the cross that you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked by your torments, or to be consumed by your prisons. Expenses are reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted, so must it be restored."

The principal matters objected to at first were the vestments, the use of music, and bowing and kneeling; but afterwards episcopacy was attacked, and attempts were perseveringly made to substitute the presbyterian form of Church government.

Robert Dudley, born in 1532, was a younger Son of the duke of Northumberland. He joined in the attempt to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne, seized the town of King's Lynn, and proclaimed her there, for which he was tried, Jan. 22, 1554He pleaded guilty, but his life was spared, and he Received a pardon the following year, (Easter term, 1555) He then went abroad, and served at the battle of St. Quentin. By Elizabeth he was created Lord Denbigh, Sept. 28, 1563, and earl of Leicester

The Puritans had no support from abroad, and, though violent in language, were then too weak to do more than inspire uneasiness, though Archbishop Parker clearly pointed out the dangerous political consequences that naturally flowed from their opinions. The Romanists, on the other hand, had the active help of successive popes (particularly Sixtus V. ), and of Philip

Arms of Dudley, earl of Leicester.

sent, with almost regal powers, into the Low Countries, but greatly injured their cause by his inso lence and incapacity; yet in 1588 he was made generalissimo of the army raised to oppose the Spaniards. He died in the same year (Sept. 4), not without suspicion of poison. He professed adherence to the rigid doctrines of the Puritans, but was an execrable character, who removed his opponents by poison. He was three times married. He was suspected of murdering his first wife (Amy Robsart), whom he wedded June 4, 1550; and he disowned the second (Lady Douglas Howard), but left by her a son, Sir Robert Dudley, who lived abroad, and, being a favourite of the emperor, Ferdinand II., styled himself duke of Northumberland; he died at Florence in 1650. His third wife, who survived him, was Lettice, widow of the earl of Essex, and mother of another royal favourite. Pius V. issued a bull (April 25, 1570), pronounc ing the queen excommunicated and deposed, the

The reign of Elizabeth is a very | rature flourished as it had never done memorable era under every aspect in which the state of a nation can be considered. In religion, the reform that had been begun was accomplished, not so completely as could be wished, for the governors of the Church met with opposition at every step from the Puritans, but still in a degree that should be ever thankfully remembered. Lite