FOOTNOTES:
[2] Little Arthur should look back, and read the story of the taking of Calais, and of the good Eustace de St. Pierre.
CHAPTER XLIV.
ELIZABETH.—1558 to 1603.
How Queen Elizabeth allowed the people to be Protestants; how they learned many useful things from foreigners who had been persecuted in their own country; how Mary Queen of Scots was driven from her kingdom, and was imprisoned, and at last beheaded by Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabeth’s reign was so very long, and there are so many things in it to tell you about, that I am sure we must have three chapters about her, and you will find both good and bad in them; but after all you will think that her being queen was a very good thing for England.
When Queen Mary died, Elizabeth was at Hatfield, where she stayed a little while, till some of the great and wise men belonging to the country went to her to advise her what she had best do for the good of England, and how she should begin. At the end of a week she went to London.
She was twenty-five years old, and very pleasant looking. She was a good scholar in Latin, Greek, Italian, and some other languages; but she loved English above all.
The first thing Elizabeth and her wise counsellors did was to set free all the poor Protestants whom Queen Mary and Bishop Bonner had put in prison, and intended to burn. Then she allowed the Bible and prayers to be read in English.
When Elizabeth rode through London to be crowned in Westminster Abbey, the citizens made all sorts of fine shows to do honour to a queen who had already been so good to the poor Protestants. They hung beautiful silks and satins out at the windows like flags; they built fine wooden arches across the streets, which they dressed up with branches of trees and flowers; and just as the queen was riding under one of them, a boy beautifully dressed was let down by cords from the top, who gave the queen a beautiful Bible, and then he was drawn up again. Elizabeth took the Bible and kissed it, and pressed it to her bosom, and said it was a present she liked best of all the fine things the people had given her that day.
Afterwards she appointed Protestant bishops, and made a very good and learned man, named Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Queen Elizabeth did not find it very easy to undo all the mischief that Queen Mary had done; but at last, with the help of her good counsellors, England was at peace, and the people were settled, some on their lands, where they were beginning to sow more corn and make more gardens than they had done before, and some in different trades; for the English learned to make a great many things at this time from strangers that came to live here.
I will tell you why they came. That cruel Philip the Second, King of Spain, who had been married to Queen Mary, was King over Flanders and Holland, as well as Spain. A great many of the people in those countries were Protestants: but Philip wanted to make them Papists by force, and would have burnt them as Queen Mary did the Protestants in England. But they got away from him, and, hearing that Queen Elizabeth was a friend to the Protestants, they came here. And as some of them were spinners and weavers, and others dyers, and so on, they began to work at their trades, and taught them to the English. Since that time we have always been able to make woollen and linen cloths ourselves.
So you see that King Philip, by being cruel, drove away useful people from his country, and Queen Elizabeth, by being kind and just, got those useful people to do good to our own dear England.
I must tell you a sad story of the worst thing that happened in Queen Elizabeth’s time, in this chapter, because it has a great deal to do with the Protestants and Papists.
In the chapter about Edward the Sixth you read that there was a beautiful young Queen of Scotland, and that the English wished King Edward to marry her; but that she went to France, and married the young French king instead.
She was so very young when she first went, that her husband’s mother kept her to teach along with her own little girls till she was old enough to be married; and I am sorry to say that she taught her to be cunning, and deceitful, and cruel.
Her name was Mary, and she was the most beautiful young queen in the world; and the old French queen, whose name was Catherine, taught her to love dress, and shows, and dancing, more than anything, although she was so clever that she might have learned all the good things that the beautiful Lady Jane Grey had learned.
The young King of France died very soon, and then Mary, who is always called Queen of Scots, went home to Scotland. If she had been wise, she might have done as much good as her cousin Queen Elizabeth did in England.
But she had been too long living in gaiety and amusement in France, to know what was best for her people; and instead of listening to wise counsellors, as Elizabeth did, she would take advice from nobody but Frenchmen, or others who would dance and sing instead of minding serious things.
When she went away from Scotland all the people were Papists; but long before she got back, not only the people, but most of the great lords, were Protestants; and Mary was very much vexed, and tried to make them all turn Papists again.
At last, there was a civil war in Scotland, between the Papists and Protestants, which did much mischief: at the end of it, the Protestants promised Mary to let her be a Papist and have Papist clergymen for herself and the lords and ladies belonging to her house; and she promised that her children should be brought up as Protestants, and that the people should be allowed to worship God in the way they liked best.
Just before this war Mary had married her cousin, Henry Stuart, called Lord Darnley, who was very handsome; and she liked him very much indeed for a little time, and they had a son called James. But soon afterwards Mary was very much offended with Darnley, and showed great favour to Lord Bothwell. Not long afterwards Lord Bothwell murdered Darnley at the very time when Mary was giving a ball in her palace and was dancing merrily; and most people then thought that Mary had planned the wicked deed with Bothwell that she might be able to marry him.
And it turned out just as everybody expected; so you cannot wonder that most of those who were good were very angry indeed when they found that she chose to marry that wicked man three months after he had killed her poor husband.
Then there was another civil war, and Mary was put into prison in Loch-Leven Castle, which stands on a little island in the middle of a lake. However, by the help of one of her friends she got out, and once more got her Papist advisers round her, who tried to make her queen again.
But the Scots would not allow it, and they made her little infant James their king, and made the lords Murray and Morton, and some others, guardians for the little king and the kingdom.
It would have been well for Queen Mary if she would have lived in Scotland quietly, and taken care of her little son herself. But her bad husband, Bothwell, had run away to save his own life, and Mary Queen of Scots chose to come to England, in hopes that Queen Elizabeth, her cousin, would help her to get the kingdom of Scotland again.
I cannot tell you all the things that happened to Mary Queen of Scots in England. But I must say that I wish she had never come. She first of all seemed to want to make friends with Elizabeth, but all the time she was sending letters to the kings of France and Spain, to ask them to help her to get not only Scotland, but England for herself, and she promised one of the great English lords she would marry him, and make him king, if he would help her too.
She also sent to get the Pope’s help, and promised that all the people in England and Scotland too should be Papists, and obey the Pope again, and send him a great deal of money every year, if she could only kill or drive away Queen Elizabeth.
Now, Elizabeth’s faithful friends and wise counsellors found out all these letters to the Pope and the kings of France and Spain, and they were so afraid lest any harm should happen to their good, useful Queen Elizabeth, that they kept Mary Queen of Scots in prison, sometimes in one great castle, sometimes in another.
They allowed her to walk, and ride, and to have her ladies and other friends with her, and many people visited her at first. But when it was known that she really wished to make the English all Papists again, she was not allowed to see so many people.
At last—I could almost cry when I tell you of it—the beautiful, and clever, and very unhappy Queen of Scots was ordered to be beheaded! She was in prison at Fotheringay Castle when Queen Elizabeth’s cruel order to cut off her head was sent to her. The next day her steward and her ladies led her into the great hall of the castle, which was hung all round with black cloth. In the middle of the hall there was a place raised above the floor, also covered with black. There her maids took off her veil, and she knelt down and laid her beautiful head on the block. It was cut off, and her servants took it and her body to bury.
Mary had done many wicked things: she had tried to do much mischief in England. But as she was not born in England, but was the queen of another country, neither Elizabeth nor her counsellors had any business either to keep her in prison, or to put her to death. They ought to have sent her, at the very first, safely to some other country, if they were really afraid she would do mischief in England.
This is a very bad thing: and I cannot make any excuse for Elizabeth. I will only say that her old counsellors were so afraid lest Mary should prevail on the kings of France and Spain to help her to kill Elizabeth, and make the English all Papists again, that they wished Elizabeth to have ordered Mary’s head to be taken off long before she really did so.
CHAPTER XLV.
ELIZABETH.—Continued.
How Queen Elizabeth refused to marry; how the ships and the sailors were improved in her reign; how some great admirals made many voyages and discoveries; how the King of Spain sent a great fleet and army to conquer England, but could not succeed; and how the English did much harm to Spain.
It is quite pleasant, my little friend, to have to write a chapter for you, where I can tell you of all things going well for England, that dear country where God allows us to live, which he has given us to love, and to do all we can for.
When first Elizabeth became queen, her counsellors and the Parliament, and the people, all asked her to marry, and promised to receive kindly anybody she should choose. And the King of Spain asked her to marry him, but she told him she would not marry him, because he had been her sister’s husband; and she did not believe the Pope had power to allow her to marry one who had been her sister’s husband. Then the old Queen of France, Catherine of Medicis, who had taught poor Mary Queen of Scots to be so foolish and cruel, wanted Queen Elizabeth to marry one of her sons. But Elizabeth did not like them any better than she did Philip, yet more than once she pretended she was going to marry one of them, for she wanted to be friends with France, and so make England strong and able to fight successfully against Spain. Then some of the great English lords wanted to marry her. But she knew that if she married one of them the others would be jealous, and, may be, would make a civil war in England; so she thanked the counsellors, and the Parliament, and the people, for their kindness, but said she would rather live single, as she had quite enough to do to govern the kingdom well, without being troubled with marrying. And she kept her word, and never married, and is always called the Maiden Queen.
I told you long ago, that the first great sea-fight in which the English beat the French was in the reign of Edward the Third. Since that time the English ships had been very much improved; instead of only one mast, the largest had three, and instead of stones for the sailors to throw at one another, there were large and small guns to fight with. Then the sailors were as much improved as the ships. Instead of only sailing along by the land, and only going to sea in good weather, they made long voyages.
You know, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, I told you that some bold sailors had sailed as far as America. Now Queen Elizabeth, who knew very well that the kings of France and Spain wanted to make war upon England, and drive her away, and oppress the Protestants, thought, like wise King Alfred, that the best way to defend England was to have plenty of ships and good seamen, and brave admirals and captains to command them: and so meet her enemies on the sea, and keep them from ever landing in England.
I must tell you something about one or two of Queen Elizabeth’s great admirals.
Sir Francis Drake, the first man who ever sailed his ship round the whole world, was born in Devonshire, and went to sea at first with some other brave gentlemen, to carry on a war against some towns which the Spaniards had built in South America. This was very wrong, because private persons have no business to make war, and take towns, and make prisoners of the townspeople. Such things should only be done when there is a lawful war between two countries. Then, indeed, every man must do his duty, and fight as well as he can for his own country and king. If private gentlemen were to go and take towns belonging to other countries, now, they would be called PIRATES, and they would be hanged.
However, as Sir Francis Drake grew older, he left off making private war, became one of the queen’s best admirals, and you will read more about him near the end of this chapter.
When he made his grand voyage round the world, he sailed always from the East to the West. He first went round Cape Horn, at the very South end of South America, where he saw great islands of ice as high as a large hill, and penguins and albatrosses swimming about them. Then he sailed to the Spice Islands, where he saw cloves and nutmegs grow, and birds of Paradise flying about in the air, and peacocks in the fields, and monkeys skipping from tree to tree in the woods. Then he passed by the Cape of Good Hope, which is in the South part of Africa, where all the beautiful geraniums and heaths come from.
Queen Elizabeth spoke to him kindly when he set out, and when he came back, after being three years at sea, she went and dined with him on board his own ship, and saw all the beautiful and curious things he had brought home with him.
Another great Admiral was Sir Martin Frobisher, who had been to the furthest parts of North America, and first saw all the land about Hudson’s Bay, and those countries to the south of that bay, where the English not long afterwards built towns, and settled a great many free states, that you will read a great deal about some day.
In many things, the next admiral I will tell you about was a greater man than any of the rest. His name was Sir Walter Raleigh; he was both a sailor and a soldier: sometimes he commanded a ship, and sometimes he fought along with the army on shore.
The first time the queen took notice of him was one day that she was walking in London, and came to a splashy place just as Sir Walter was going by. As she was thinking how she could best step through the mud, Sir Walter took off a nice new cloak that he had on, and spread it on the dirt, so that the queen might walk over without wetting her shoes. She was very much pleased, and desired him to go to see her at her palace; and as she found that he was very clever and very brave, she made him one of her chief admirals.
Queen Elizabeth used to behave to her brave admirals and generals, and her wise counsellors, and even to her great merchants, like a friend. She visited them in their houses, and talked to them cheerfully of her affairs. She took notice of even the poorest people, and she used to walk and ride about, so that all her subjects knew her and loved her. And now I am going to tell you a part of her history, which will show you how happy it was for her and for England that the people did love their good queen.
The King of Spain had never loved Elizabeth; and he hated England, because the people were Protestants: and I am sure you remember how cruel he and his wife Queen Mary were to the English.
He made war against England, and thought that if he could land a great army on the coast, he might conquer all the country and drive away Elizabeth, and make the English all Papists again. He hoped this would be easy, because he was the richest king in the world, and had more ships and sailors and soldiers than any other. And he began to build more ships and to collect more sailors and soldiers; and he made so sure he should conquer England, that I have heard he even had chains put on board the ships, to chain the English admirals when his people should take them.
This fleet, that King Philip made ready to conquer England, was the largest that any king had ever sent to sea, and he called it the “Invincible Armada,”[3] because, he said, nobody could conquer it.
But Queen Elizabeth heard in time that Philip was making ready this great navy, to bring as great an army to attack England. She immediately told the Parliament and people of her danger. She rode out herself to see her soldiers and her ships, and she said she trusted herself entirely to her good people. The people soon showed her they might be trusted: they came willingly to be sailors and soldiers; and the great lords gave money to pay the soldiers; and many gentlemen built ships, and bought guns, and gave them to the queen. And she had soon a good fleet. It was not so large as King Philip’s indeed, and the ships were quite small compared with his; but the sailors belonging to it remembered that they were to fight for their own dear England, and for a queen whom they loved.
The Spanish Armada.
The chief admiral was Lord Howard of Effingham; under him were Lord Seymour, Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir Walter Raleigh, and several other lords and gentlemen.
Queen Elizabeth reviewing her army at Tilbury.
The queen got herself ready to march to whatever place the Spaniards might land at. She had a good army a little way from London, at Tilbury Fort, and she went there on horseback, and spoke to the soldiers, to give them courage.
Oh, how anxious everybody in England was, when the news came that the great Armada was at sea, and sailing very near them! but it pleased God to save England. Soon after the Spanish fleet set sail a great storm arose, and many of the ships were so damaged that they could not come to England at all.
When the others did come, Queen Elizabeth’s fleet sailed out and followed them for a week up the English Channel, fighting and beating them all the way. At last, in the Straits of Dover, the English admirals sent fire ships into the middle of the Armada, and the Spaniards sailed away in a fright; and not one ship got to England to land Spanish soldiers. Twelve of them were taken or destroyed; and another storm, greater than the first, sank a great many and wrecked others, so that of all Philip’s great fleet and army, only one-third could get back to Spain; and they were so tired and so hurt that he never could get them together again to attack England.
Philip must have been very sorry that he began to make war against England, for the war lasted as long as he lived, and every year the English admirals used to take a good many of his ships; and one year Lord Essex, who was a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth’s, landed in Spain, and took Cadiz, one of Philip’s best towns, and burnt a great many ships that were in its harbour.