Elizabeth's personal predilections, like those of her father, were in favour neither of Romanism nor of Protestantism. She did not wish to be the slave of the Pope, nor did she intend to be the tool of the zealots who had picked up in their Continental exile the newest doctrines of the Swiss and German Reformers. At the same time, she wished to offend neither the Catholic nor the Protestant, but to lead them both into the via media of an English National Church, which should be both orthodox and independent. She was not a woman of much spiritual piety or fervent zeal, and, judging from her own feelings, argued that it would be possible to make others conform, without much difficulty, to the Church which offered the happy mean.

Her position, however, was settled for her by the obstinacy of the extreme Romanists. The bishops whom Mary had appointed behaved in the most arrogant and insulting manner to her. When she had been duly saluted as queen by the nation and the Parliament, they tacitly denied her right to the throne; for with one accord they refused to be present at her coronation, much more to place the crown upon her head. In the view of the strict Papist, she was a bastard and a usurper. It was with great difficulty that a single bishop—Oglethorpe, of Carlisle—was at last persuaded to officiate at the ceremony. This senseless obstinacy on the part of the prelates drove Elizabeth further in the direction of Protestantism than she had intended to go. She was constrained to send for the exiled Protestant bishops of King Edward's making, and to replace them in their sees. The disloyal Romanist prelates were deposed, and in their places new men were consecrated by the restored Protestant bishops. Elizabeth took care that they should be moderate personages, who might be trusted not to give trouble; the most important of them was the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, a wise and pious man, who guided the Church of England through the crisis with singular discretion.

As it was impossible to conciliate the extreme Romanists, the queen resolved to take up her father's position, with some modifications in the direction of Protestantism. Unlike Henry VIII., she did not call herself Supreme Head of the Church, but all her subjects were summoned to take the oath of spiritual obedience to her. Only a few hundred persons refused it, though among them were all the old bishops. But the moderate Catholics accepted her, though they did not sacrifice their faith to their loyalty. Elizabeth then issued a new Liturgy to be the standard of the Creed of the English Church: it was a revision of the Second Prayer-book of Edward VI., amended in such a way as to make it less expressive of the views of the extreme Protestants. The Latin Mass was forbidden, and all the old ceremonies, which Mary had restored, were again swept away. There was, however, no attempt at enforcing obedience by persecution. Elizabeth had taken warning by the fate of her brother's and her sister's measures, and trusted to loyalty and national feeling, not to prison or stake. She was wise in her generation, for in ten years well-nigh all the moderate Catholics had conformed to the Anglican formularies, rallying to the national church when they saw that it was not to become ultra-Protestant. Their adhesion was the more easily effected because the Pope, on purely political grounds, did not excommunicate Elizabeth, or declare her deposed, so that to hold to the old faith was not yet inconsistent with loyalty to the Crown.

Ere Elizabeth's religious bent had been clearly ascertained, her widowed brother-in-law, Philip of Spain, had proposed that she should marry him, for he was much set on maintaining his hold on England. Elizabeth detested him, and steadfastly refused the offer, but with a show of politeness, lest she might bring war on herself. Fearing that when foiled Philip might become dangerous, she made peace and alliance with his enemy, the King of France, and left Calais in his hands, receiving instead a sum of 500,000 crowns.

Thus Elizabeth had tided over the first difficulties of her reign, and felt her throne growing firmer beneath her, though there were still dangers on every side. But her character was well suited to cope with the situation. Though marred by many failings peculiarly feminine, she had a man's brain and decision. She was vain of her handsome person, and loved to be flattered and worshipped; but her vanity was not great enough to induce her to put herself under the hand of a husband. She listened to suitor after suitor, but said them nay in the end. Only one of them ever seems to have touched her heart—this was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the son of Protector Northumberland. Though much taken with his comely face, the queen had strength of mind to deny him her hand, seeing that marriage with a subject would bring too many feuds and jealousies in its train. She consoled herself with pageants and pleasures, for which she retained a curious zest even far into her old age. Every one has heard of her elaborate toilette and her thousand gowns, and of how she danced before foreign ambassadors after she had passed the age of sixty.

But the vanity and love of pleasure which she inherited from her mother, Anne Boleyn, were of comparatively little moment in the ordering of the queen's life, because her clear and cold brain dominated her desires. Elizabeth was as cautious, as suspicious, and as secretive, as her grandfather Henry VII. She was very unscrupulous in her diplomacy, and did not stick at a lie when an evasion would no longer serve. Though she had plenty of courage for moments of danger, yet she always put off the struggle as long as possible, holding that every day of respite that she gained might chance to give some unexpected end to the crisis. It is undoubted that she missed many opportunities owing to this cautious slowness, but she also saved herself from many traps into which a more hasty politician would have fallen. We shall have to notice, again and again, her reluctance to interfere in the wars of the Continent, even when it had become inevitable that she must ultimately choose her side. This same caution made her a very economical ruler. She grudged every penny that was spent—except, indeed, the outgoings of her own privy purse—and often pushed parsimony to the most unwise extreme. The very fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada ran short both of powder and provisions before the fighting was quite over.

The English much admired their politic, unscrupulous, and parsimonious queen. They saw only that she gave them good and cheap governance, kept the kingdom out of unnecessary wars, and was, on the whole, both tolerant and merciful. As they watched her pick her way successfully through so many snares and perils, they came to look upon her as a sort of second Providence, and credited her with an almost superhuman sagacity and omniscience, which she was far from possessing. But they were not altogether wrong in their confidence; she was, in spite of her faults and foibles, a patriotic, clear-headed, hard-working sovereign, who did her best for her people as well as for herself. Above all, she had the invaluable gift of choosing her servants well; her two great ministers, Cecil and Walsingham, were the most capable men in England for their work, and she seldom failed to appreciate merit when once she cast her eye upon it.

For the first twelve years of Elizabeth's rule, England was occupied in slowly settling down after the storms of the last two reigns. The English Church was gradually absorbing the moderate men from both the Protestant and the Romanist ranks. Quiet times were repairing the wealth of the land, and the restoration of the purity of the coinage, which was the queen's earliest care, had put trade once more on a healthy basis. Foreign war was easily avoided; in France Henry II. died ere Elizabeth had reigned a year, and his weak sons had occupation enough in their civil wars with the Huguenots. Philip of Spain was ere long to find a similar distraction, from the stirring of discontent among his much-persecuted Protestant subjects in the Netherlands.

The chief troubles of the period 1558-68 came from another quarter—the turbulent kingdom of Scotland. Elizabeth's natural heir was her cousin, Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scots, who represented the line of Henry VII.'s eldest daughter. Unless Elizabeth should marry and have issue, Mary stood next her in the line of succession. The Queen of Scots, however, was a most undesirable heiress. She had been brought up in France, had married the eldest son of Henry II. and hated England. She was a zealous Romanist, and ready to work hard for her faith. Moreover, she was greatly desirous of being recognized as Elizabeth's next of kin, and openly laid claim to the position. Though very young, she was clever and active, and possessed charms of person and manner which bent many men to her will.

Mary returned from France in 1561, having lost her husband, the young French king, after he had reigned but a single year. She found Scotland, as usual, in a state of turmoil and violence. The Parliament had, in her absence, followed the example of England, by casting off the Roman yoke, and declaring Protestantism the religion of the land. But a strong party of Romanist lords refused obedience, and with them the queen allied herself on her arrival.

For the seven turbulent years of Mary's stay in Scotland, she was a grievous thorn in the side of Elizabeth. She was always laying claim to be acknowledged as heiress to the English crown, and her demand was secretly approved by the surviving Romanists to the south of the Tweed. Elizabeth replied by intriguing with the Protestant nobles of Scotland, and stirred up as much trouble as she could for her cousin, while outwardly professing the greatest love and esteem for her. The results of their machinations against each other were still uncertain, when Mary spoilt her own game by twice allowing her passion to overrule her judgment. She was fascinated by the handsome person of her first-cousin, Henry Lord Darnley, [34] and most unwisely married him, and made him king-consort. Darnley was a vicious, ill-conditioned young man, and soon made himself unbearable to his wife, by striving to get the royal power into his hands, and at the same time treating her with gross cruelty and neglect. His crowning offence was causing the assassination of Mary's private secretary, Rizzio, in her actual presence, under circumstances of the greatest brutality. After this, Mary completely lost her head. She lent her sanction to a plot for her husband's murder, framed by the Earl of Bothwell, a great lord of the Border. Bothwell slew the young king and blew up his residence with gunpowder, but disavowed the deed, and induced the queen to have him declared guiltless after a mock trial. Mary was well rid of her husband, and, her complicity in the plot not having been proved, she might have escaped the consequences of her crime but for a second fit of infatuation. She had become violently enamoured of the murderer Bothwell, and suffered him to carry her off to the castle of Dunbar, and there to marry her. No one now doubted her complicity in Darnley's murder, and the whole kingdom rose against her in righteous indignation. The army which Bothwell raised in her defence refused to strike a blow, and melted away when faced by the levies of the Protestant lords. The queen herself fell into their hands, was forced to abdicate, and was condemned to lifelong prison in Lochleven Castle. In Mary's place, her young son by Darnley, James VI., was proclaimed as king, the regency being given by the Parliament to James, Earl of Murray, an illegitimate son of James V. (June, 1567).

Queen Mary being thus imprisoned and discredited, Elizabeth thought that her troubles on the side of Scotland were over, and closely allied herself with the Regent Murray. But the struggle was not yet ended. The Romanist party in Scotland saw that the new Protestant rulers of the country would crush their faith, and determined on a desperate rising in favour of their old religion and their old sovereign.

Mary escaped by night from Lochleven, and joined the insurgents. The Regent gave chase, and caught her army up at Langside, near Glasgow. The queen's friends were routed in the fight that followed, and she herself, riding hard out of the fray, fled for the English border. After a moment's hesitation, she resolved to throw herself on Elizabeth's mercy, rather than to face the almost certain death which awaited her at the hands of her son's adherents. There was no time to wait for any promise of safe conduct or shelter, and she arrived at Carlisle, unprotected by any engagement on the part of the Queen of England (May, 1568).

Elizabeth's most dangerous enemy had thus fallen into her hands, but the position was not much simplified by the fact. It had to be decided whether the royal refugee should be allowed to proceed to France, as she herself wished; or handed over to the Scots, as the Regent Murray demanded; or kept in custody in England, as Elizabeth's self-interest seemed to require. To let her go to France would be generous, but dangerous; once arrived there, she would conspire with her cousins, the powerful family of Guise, against the peace of England. To send her back to Scotland would have some savour of legality about it, but would be equivalent to pronouncing her death-sentence; and from this Elizabeth shrank. To keep her captive in England seemed harsh, and even treacherous; for what right had one sovereign princess to imprison another? The politic Elizabeth resolved to take a cautious middle course. She protested to the Queen of Scots that she was willing to restore her to her throne, if she found that the accusations which her subjects made against her were untrue. This was practically putting her guest upon her trial for the murder of Darnley; for when the Regent and the Scots lords were informed of the decision, they came forward to accuse their exiled mistress. They laid before Elizabeth's commission of inquiry the famous "Casket Letters," a series of documents which had passed between Mary and Bothwell. If genuine—and it seems almost certain that they were—they proved the guilt and infatuation of the Queen of Scots up to the hilt. Mary protested that they were forgeries, and her followers down to this day have believed her. But she refused to stand any trial; declared that she, a crowned queen and no subject of England, would never plead before English judges, and demanded leave to quit the realm. Satisfied with the effect on English and Scottish public opinion which the "Casket Letters" had produced, Elizabeth now took the decisive step of consigning Mary to close custody; thus practically treating her as a criminal, though no decision had been given against her (January, 1569).

For nearly twenty years the unfortunate Queen of Scots was doomed to spend a weary life, moved about from one manor or castle to another, under the care of guardians who were little better than gaolers. But she soon began to revenge herself. As long as she lived she was undoubtedly Elizabeth's heiress, if hereditary right counted for anything. Using this fact as her weapon, she began to intrigue with English malcontents. She offered her hand to the Duke of Norfolk, an ambitious young man, who was dazzled by the prospect of succeeding to Elizabeth's throne. She stirred up the Catholic lords of the North, by promising to restore the old faith if they would overthrow her cousin. But Elizabeth's ministers were wary and suspicious; Norfolk's designs were discovered, and he was cast into the Tower. The news of his imprisonment led to the immediate outbreak of the Northern Romanists; Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Charles Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, raised their retainers, and made a dash on Tutbury, where Mary was confined, intending to rescue her and proclaim her as queen.

But the days of the Wars of the Roses were past; the retainers of the northern lords could do nothing against the royal power, and the "Rising in the North," as the plot was called, came to an ignominious end. The two earls failed to seize the person of the Queen of Scots, and were easily driven away. They fled—the one to Scotland, the other to Spain,—and gave Elizabeth little further trouble. This was the last insurrection of the old feudal type in the pages of English history (October and November, 1569). Elizabeth showed herself more merciful than might have been expected to the plotters. Norfolk was released after a short captivity; the Queen of Scots suffered no further aggravation of her imprisonment. For this she gave her cousin small thanks, and without delay recommenced plotting to secure her liberty.

Meanwhile the aspect of affairs on the Continent was beginning to engage more and more of Elizabeth's attention. By this time civil wars were alight both in France and in the Netherlands. The French Protestants, or Huguenots, as they were called, had taken arms to secure themselves toleration as early as 1562. The Protestants of the Netherlands, after long suffering under the grinding tyranny of Philip of Spain and the Inquisition, had been driven to revolt in 1568. In both countries the insurgents appealed for help to Elizabeth; they implored the queen to save them from the triumph of popery, and pointed out that if they themselves failed, the victorious Romanists would inevitably turn against England, the only power in Western Europe which denied the Pope's supremacy. They might have added that the Queen of Scots was closely allied with the Guises, the heads of the Catholic party in France, and that she was also intriguing for the aid of Philip of Spain.

In her dealings with the Continental Protestants Elizabeth showed herself at her worst. Vacillation and selfishness marked her actions from first to last. She felt that the civil wars kept France and Spain from being dangerous to her. She knew also that if they ended in the suppression of the rebels, England would be in grave danger. But she hated rebellion, she could not understand religious enthusiasm, and she detested the violent Calvinism which both the Huguenots and the Netherlanders professed. All wars too, she knew, were expensive, and their issues doubtful. Hence it came that she displayed a reluctance to commit herself to one side or the other, which involved her in much double-dealing and even treachery. She refused to declare war either on Philip of Spain or on Charles of France, and allowed their ministers to remain at her court. But she several times sent the Huguenots help, both secretly and openly, and she allowed the Netherland Protestants to take shelter in England, and recruit themselves in her ports. She made no effort to prevent hundreds of English volunteers passing the Channel to aid the insurgents. For if the queen had doubts as to taking her side, the people had none; they sympathized heartily with the Huguenots and the Netherlanders, and did all that private persons could to bring them succour.

Yet Elizabeth refused to assume the position of the champion of Protestantism, even when the inducement to do so became more pressing. In 1570 Pope Pius V. formally excommunicated her, and declared her deposed, and her kingdom transferred to her cousin Mary. This declaration turned all the more violent and fanatical Romanists into potential traitors; if they believed in their Pope's decision, they were bound to regard Elizabeth as a bastard and a usurper, and to look upon Mary as the true queen. Most of the English Catholics steadily refused to take up this position, and remained loyal in spite of the many vexations to which their religion exposed them. But a violent minority accepted the papal decree, and spent their time in scheming to depose or even to murder their sovereign. The knowledge of their designs made Elizabeth doubly cautious and wary, but did not drive her into a crusade against Catholicism. Her Parliament, however, passed bills, making the introduction of papal bulls into the realm, as also the perversion of members of the Church of England to Romanism, high treason. But no attempt was made to save the Continental Protestants from their oppressors, or to put England at the head of a league against the Pope.

Meanwhile, the Bull of Deposition bore its first-fruits in a new conspiracy of the English Romanists, generally known as the "Ridolfi Plot," from the name of an Italian banker, who served as the go-between of the English malcontents and the King of Spain. The Duke of Norfolk, ungrateful for his pardon two years before, took the lead in the conspiracy, undertaking to seize or even to murder Elizabeth, and then to marry the Queen of Scots. Philip of Spain promised Norfolk's agent, Ridolfi, that the duke should have the aid of Spanish troops the moment that he took arms. But the plan came to Cecil's ears, some of Norfolk's papers fell into the minister's power, and he was able to lay his hands on all concerned in the plot. Norfolk lost his head, as he well deserved, and it was expected that the Queen of Scots would share his fate. But though the nation and the Parliament clamoured for Mary's blood, Elizabeth refused to touch her; she was left unharmed in her captivity. Nor did the queen declare war on Spain, though there was the clearest proof that Philip had been implicated in the plot. Her only wish seems to have been to put off the crisis as long as possible.

If her own danger could not tempt Elizabeth to interfere in Continental affairs, it was not likely that anything else would make her take up the sword. Not even the fearful Massacre of St. Bartholomew provoked her to take up arms against the Catholics—though on that one night the weak King of France, egged on by his wicked mother and brother, ordered the slaughter of 20,000 Protestants who had come up to Paris, relying on his good will and promised patronage (1572). Elizabeth stormed at the treacherous French court, but made no attempt to aid the surviving Huguenots in their gallant struggle against their persecutors. So great was her determination to keep the peace, that she even offered to mediate between Philip of Spain and the revolted provinces of the Low Countries, though it is fair to add that she—perhaps designedly—proposed conditions to them which it was unlikely that either would accept.

It was fortunate for England that both the Huguenots in France and the Dutch in the North displayed a far greater power of resistance than might have been expected. The former held their own, and even forced King Charles to come to terms and grant them toleration. The latter, though reduced to great straits, persevered to the end under their wise leader, William, Prince of Orange, and beat back the terrible Duke of Alva, King Philip's best general, from the walls of Alkmaar, when their fortunes seemed at the lowest (1573). Next year they forced Alva's successor, Requesens, to retire from Holland, after the gallant defence and relief of Leyden (October, 1574).

Elizabeth, therefore, escaped the danger that the triumph of the King of Spain and the Catholic party in France would have brought upon her, though her safety came from no merit of her own. It was not till ten years more had passed that she was finally forced to draw the sword and fight for her life and crown. Meanwhile, it cannot be denied that her cautious and selfish policy did much for the material prosperity of England. In twenty years of peace the one country of Western Europe which enjoyed quiet and good government was bound to profit at the expense of its unfortunate neighbours. England became a land of refuge to all the Continental Protestants: to her shores the artisans of France transferred their industries, and the merchants of Antwerp their hoarded wealth. The new settlers were kindly received, as men persecuted in behalf of the true faith, and became good citizens of their adopted country. But most of all did the maritime trade of England prosper. Her seamen got the advantage that comes to the neutral flag in time of war, and began to take into their hands the commerce that had once been the staple of the Hanseatic Towns, the French ocean ports, and the cities of the much-vexed Low Countries. English ships had seldom been seen in earlier days beyond Hamburg or Lisbon, but now they began to push into the Baltic, to follow the Mediterranean as far as Turkey, and even to navigate the wild Arctic Ocean, as far as the ports of Northern Russia.

But the attention of the English seamen was directed most of all to the West, whither the reports of the vast wealth of America drew adventurous spirits as with a magnet. The gold which the Spaniards had plundered from the ancient empires of Mexico and Peru dazzled the eyes of all men, and the English seamen hoped to find some similar hoard on every barren shore from Newfoundland to Patagonia. But the Spaniards arrogated to themselves the sole right to America and its trade, basing their claim on a preposterous grant made them by Alexander VI., the notorious Borgia Pope. They treated all adventurers who pushed into the Western waters not only as intruders, but as pirates. Sir John Hawkins, the pioneer of English trade to America, was always coming into collision with them (1562-64). That more famous sea-captain, Sir Francis Drake, a cousin of Hawkins, spent most of his time in bickering in a somewhat piratical way with the Spanish authorities beyond the ocean. His second voyage to the West was a great landmark in English naval history. Starting in 1577 with the secret connivance of Elizabeth, he sailed round Cape Horn and up the coasts of Chili and Peru, capturing numberless Spanish ships, and often sacking a wealthy port. His greatest achievement was the seizing of the great Lima galleon, which was taking home to King Philip the annual instalment of American treasure—a sum of no less than £500,000. After taking this splendid booty, Drake reached England by crossing the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, thus making the first circumnavigation of the globe which an Englishman had accomplished. While Drake was gathering treasure in South America, other seamen pushed northward, endeavouring to find the "North-West Passage"—a navigable route which was supposed to exist round the northern shore of North America. There Frobisher discovered Labrador and Hudson's Bay, but brought back little profit from his adventures in the frozen Arctic seas.

While the emissaries of England were invading the Spanish waters, England herself was suffering from another kind of invasion at the hands of the friends of the King of Spain. Since the bull of 1570, Elizabeth was considered fair game by every fanatical Romanist on the Continent. Accordingly, there began to land in England many secret missionaries of the old faith, generally exiled Englishmen trained abroad in the "English colleges" at Rheims and Douay, where the banished Catholics mustered strongest. It was their aim not only to keep wavering Romanists in their faith, but to organize them in a secret conspiracy against the queen. They taught that all was permissible in dealing with heretics; their disciples were to feign loyalty, and even conformity with the English Church, but were to be ready to take up arms whenever the signal was given from the Continent. These Jesuits and seminary priests constituted a very serious danger, but they did not escape the eyes of Walsingham and Burleigh, Elizabeth's watchful ministers. Their plans were discovered, and several were caught and hung; yet the conspiracy went on, and was soon to take shape in overt action.

Its first working was seen in "Throckmorton's Plot," a widely spread scheme for an attack on England by all the Catholic powers combined (1583). The Duke of Guise prepared an army in France, the King of Spain another in the Netherlands, which were to unite for an invasion. Meanwhile, the English Romanists were to rise in favour of the Queen of Scots, and welcome the foreign armies. Throckmorton and a few more fanatics undertook to make the whole plan easier by assassinating the queen. But Walsingham's spies got scent of the matter, Throckmorton was caught and executed, and Elizabeth, convinced at last that dallying with Spain was no longer possible, dismissed King Philip's ambassador, and prepared for open war (1584).

The struggle which had so long been fought out by intrigue and unauthorized buccaneering, was now to be settled by honest hard fighting. It proved perilous enough, but far less formidable than the cautious queen had feared. Elizabeth was at last forced to lend open aid to the Protestants of the Continent, and 7000 men, under her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, sailed for Holland to aid the Dutch against King Philip. They won no great battles, but their presence was invaluable to the Netherlanders, who had begun to despair when their great leader, William of Orange, had been assassinated by a fanatic hired by Spanish gold. Leicester was an incapable general, but his men fought well, and learnt to despise the Spaniards. Even a defeat which they suffered at Zutphen encouraged them, for 500 English there made head against the whole Spanish army, and retired without great harm, though they lost Sir Philip Sidney, the most popular and accomplished young gentleman in England, well known as the author of a curious pastoral romance called "The Arcadia" (1586).

Far more important than the fighting in the Netherlands were the maritime exploits of the English seamen. The moment that they were let loose upon the Spaniards they asserted a clear supremacy at sea. Drake took and sacked Vigo, a great port of Northern Spain, and then, crossing the Atlantic, captured the chief cities of the West Indies and the Spanish main—St. Iago, Cartagena, and St. Domingo (1586).

Meanwhile, Mary Queen of Scots was playing her last stake.

From her prison she made over to King Philip her rights to the throne of England, and besought him to despatch his armies to rescue her. But she also gave her approval to one more assassination-plot hatched by the English Catholics. Instigated by a Jesuit priest named Ballard, Anthony Babington, a gentleman of Derbyshire, and a handful of his friends agreed to murder Elizabeth in her own palace. But there were spies of the lynx-eyed Walsingham among the conspirators, and when the Queen of Scots and the would-be murderers were just prepared to strike, hands were laid upon them. Babington and his friends were executed, but this was not enough to appease the cry for blood which arose from the whole nation when the conspiracy was divulged. Urged on by her ministers, Elizabeth at last allowed the Queen of Scots to be put on her trial for this, the fourth attempt to strike down her cousin. Mary was tried by a commission of peers, and clearly convicted, not only of encouraging a Catholic rising and a Spanish invasion, but of having approved Babington's murderous plan. She was found guilty (October 25, 1586), and the Parliament, which met soon after, besought the queen to have her beheaded without delay.

But Elizabeth still hesitated. She hated Mary, but her high ideas of royal prerogative made her shrink from slaying a sovereign princess, and she still dreaded the explosion of wrath which she knew must follow all over Catholic Europe. The young King of Scotland might resent his mother's execution, and the Guises in France would never pardon their cousin's death. She lingered for more than three months before she would issue Mary's death-warrant; but at last she gave the fatal signature. Her ministers at once caused the warrant to be carried out, without allowing their mistress time to repent. The Queen of Scots was executed in her prison at Fotheringay Castle. She died with great dignity and courage, asserting on the scaffold that she was a martyr for her religion, not a criminal. Many both in her own day and since have believed her words, but it is impossible to read her story through from first to last, and then to conclude that she was only the victim of circumstances and the prey of unscrupulous enemies. Though much sinned against, she was far more the worker of her own undoing (February 8, 1587).

Elizabeth expressed great wrath against her ministers for hurrying on the execution. She fined and imprisoned Davison, the Secretary of State, who had sent off Mary's death-warrant, and pretended that she had wished to pardon her. Perhaps her anger was real, but no one save the unfortunate Davison took it very seriously. The people felt nothing but satisfaction and relief, and rejoiced that there was no longer a Catholic heiress to trouble the realm. The King of Scots contented himself with a formal protest, and the Guises in France were too busy in their civil wars with King Henry III. and the Huguenots to think of assailing England.

Only Philip of Spain, who accepted in sober earnest the legacy of her rights which Mary had left him, took up the task of revenge, and he had already so many causes to hate Elizabeth, that he did not need this additional provocation to spur him on to attack her. He had already begun to prepare for a great naval expedition against England. All through the spring and summer of 1587 the ports of Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Sicily, were busy in manning and equipping every war-ship that the king could get together. The Duke of Parma, the Spanish viceroy in the Netherlands, was also directed to draw off every man that could be spared from the Dutch War, and to be ready to lead them across the Channel the moment that the king's fleet should have secured the Straits of Dover.

But the great flotilla, the Invincible Armada, as the Spaniards called it, was long in sailing. Ere it was ready, Drake made a bold descent on Cadiz, and burnt no less than 10,000 tons of shipping which lay in its harbour. He called this exploit "singeing the King of Spain's beard." This disaster caused so much delay that the expedition had to be put off till the next year.

In the spring of 1588, however, the Armada was at last ready to start. It comprised 130 vessels, half of which were great "galleons" of the largest size that were known to the sixteenth century, and carried 8000 seamen and nearly 20,000 soldiers. But the crews were raw, the ships were ill-found and ill-provisioned, and, what was most fatal of all, the admiral, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was a mere fair-weather sailor, who hardly knew a mast from an anchor. It may be added that the vessels were overcrowded with the 20,000 soldiers whom they bore, and for the most part were armed with fewer and smaller cannons than their great bulk would have been able to carry.

Nevertheless, the Armada was an imposing force, and in strong hands ought to have achieved success. For Elizabeth had a very small permanent royal navy, and had to rely for the defence of her realm mainly on privateers and merchantmen hastily equipped for war service. Moreover, her parsimony had depleted the royal arsenals to such an extent, that in provisioning and arming their fleet the English were at much the same disadvantage as their enemies. But, unlike the Spaniards, they had excellent crews, and were led by old captains who had learnt their trade in long years of exploring and buccaneering across the Atlantic—men like Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and others whose names we have no space to mention. The command of the whole was given to Lord Howard of Effingham, a capable and cautious officer, who showed himself worthy of the queen's confidence—confidence that appeared all the more striking because he was suspected by many to be a Roman Catholic. In the mere number of ships the English fleet which mustered at Plymouth somewhat exceeded the Armada, but in size the individual vessels were far smaller than the Spanish galleons. But they were much more seaworthy, and were armed so heavily with artillery that it was found that an English ship could throw a broadside of the same weight of metal as a Spaniard of almost double its size.

The Armada left Corunna, the northernmost port of Spain, on July 22, and appeared off the Lizard on July 28. On the news of its approach, the English fleet put out of Plymouth, and the beacons summoned the militia to arms all over the land from Berwick to Penzance. The Duke of Medina Sidonia had resolved not to fight the English at once, but to pass up the Channel to the Dover Straits, and get into communication with his colleague Parma in Flanders, before engaging in a decisive battle. This unwise resolve gave the English a splendid opportunity. As the Armada slowly rolled eastward, it was beset on all sides by Lord Howard's lighter fleet, and for a whole week was battered and hustled along without being able to induce the enemy to close. The great galleons were so slow and unwieldy, that they could not come up with the English, who sailed around and about them, plying them with distant but effective artillery fire, and cutting off every vessel which was disabled or fell behind. By the time that the Spaniards reached Calais, they were thoroughly demoralized; they had lost comparatively few ships, but every one of the fleet was more or less shattered by shot, and the crews had suffered terribly from the cannonade. At Calais Medina Sidonia received the unwelcome news that Parma could not join him. A Dutch fleet was blockading the Flemish ports, and the viceroy was unable to get his transports out to sea. Thus brought to a check, the duke moored his fleet off Calais, to pause a moment and recruit (August 6). But that night the English sent fire-ships among his crowded vessels, and to escape them the Spaniards had to put off hastily in the darkness. This manœuvre proved fatal. Some vessels ran ashore on the French coast, others were burnt, others cut off by the enemy. A final engagement, on August 8-9, so shattered the fleet that Medina Sidonia lost heart, and fled away into the German Ocean, before a strong gale from the south which had sprung up. His vessels were dispersed, and each made its way out of the fight as best it could. Some were taken, many driven on to the Dutch coast, the rest passed out of sight of England, steering northward before the gale.

Lord Howard's fleet was therefore able to sail victorious into the Thames, and report the rout of the enemy. It was none too soon, for the English ammunition was well-nigh exhausted after ten days' continuous fighting. They were welcomed by the queen, who had gathered a great force of militia at Tilbury, in Essex, to fight Parma, if he should succeed in crossing. Elizabeth had behaved splendidly during the crisis; she had organized a strong army, and put herself at its head, inspiring every man by the cheerful and resolute spirit which she displayed. Even had the Armada swept away the English fleet, it is unlikely that Parma would have been successful against the numerous and enthusiastic levies which were ready to fight him.

But the Armada was now a thing of naught. Forced to return round the north of Scotland, it was utterly shattered in the unknown seas of the West. The cliffs of the Orkneys, the Hebrides, Connaught, and Kerry, were strewn with the wrecks of Spanish galleons, and only 53 ships out of the 130 that had started straggled back to the ports of northern Spain.

The great crisis of the century was now past; queen and nation had been true to themselves and to each other, and the days of plots and invasions were over. For the future, Elizabeth could not only sleep secure of life and crown, but could feel that she might pose as the arbitress of Western Europe, since the domination of Spain was at an end.

But she was now too far gone in years—she had attained the age of fifty-six—to be able to start on a new and vigorous line of policy. Her old passion for caution and intrigue could not be shaken off, though they were no longer necessary. Hence it came to pass that, though England was strong, healthy, wealthy, and vigorous, she did not take up the dominant position that might have been expected. The queen persisted in her old policy of helping the Continental Protestants only by meagre doles of money, and small detachments of troops. By a vigorous effort she might have thrust the Spaniards completely out of the Low Countries, or enabled the Huguenots to make themselves supreme in France. But she refused to fit out any great expeditions; the expense appalled her parsimonious soul, and she dreaded the chances of war. Hence it came that in the Low Countries the Dutch established their independence in the "Seven United Provinces," but Spain continued to hold Belgium. Hence, too, French parties were condemned to six years more of civil war, which only ended when Henry of Navarre, the Protestant heir to the throne of France, abjured his religion in order to get accepted by the Catholics. "Paris is well worth a Mass," he cynically observed, and swore all that was required of him (1593). But he granted the Huguenots complete peace and toleration by the celebrated Edict of Nantes, and put an end to the civil war which had devastated his unhappy land for thirty years.

The chief efforts of Elizabeth's foreign policy during the last fifteen years of her reign were naval expeditions against the Spaniards. They caused King Philip much loss and much vexation of spirit, but they did not inflict any very crushing blow on him. The queen would never spend enough money on them, and generally allowed her subjects to carry on the war with squadrons of privateers. But the English adventurers very naturally sought plunder rather than solid political advantages—a fact which accounts for their failure to do anything great. A considerable expedition sent out in 1589 sacked Corunna and Vigo, but failed in an attempt to set upon the Portuguese throne a pretender hostile to King Philip. This was followed by a series of smaller expeditions to South America and the West Indies, in which Drake, and a younger adventurer, Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth's favourite courtier, did Spain considerable harm, but England no great good. A larger armament sailed in 1596 against Cadiz, under the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham. This force took the town, and destroyed Spain's largest naval arsenal and a great part of her fleet: a mere naval expedition could do no more.