| Page. | |
| [Elizabeth, Queen of England.] (From painting by an unknown artist.) | Frontispiece. |
| [Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham.] (From painting by J. C. Horsley.) | 66 |
| [Kenilworth in Elizabeth’s Time.] (From an old painting.) | 184 |
| [Elizabeth Signing the Death Warrant of Mary Stuart.] (From painting by Liezen-Mayer.) | 220 |
| [Mary Stuart Receiving her Death Sentence.] (From painting by Carl Piloty.) | 246 |
| [Last Moment of Mary, Queen of Scots.] (From painting by an unknown artist.) | 260 |
| [The Spanish Armada Attacked by the English Fleet.] (From Pine’s engraving of the tapestry formerly in the House of Lords, but destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century.) | 274 |
| [Last Moments of Elizabeth.] (From painting by Delaroche.) | 288 |
In the Days of Queen Elizabeth
CHAPTER I
THE BABY PRINCESS
Two ladies of the train of the Princess Elizabeth were talking softly together in an upper room of Hunsdon House.
“Never has such a thing happened in England before,” said the first.
“True,” whispered the second, “and to think of a swordsman being sent for across the water to Calais! That never happened before.”
“Surely no good can come to the land when the head of her who has worn the English crown rolls in the dust at the stroke of a French executioner,” murmured the first lady, looking half fearfully over her shoulder.
“But if a queen is false to the king, if she plots against the peace of the throne, even against the king’s very life, why should she not meet the same punishment that the wife of a tradesman would suffer if she strove to bring death to her husband? The court declared that Queen Anne was guilty.”