Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

REIGN OF EDWARD VI. (1547-1553).—Henry VIII., with Parliament, had determined the order of succession, giving precedence to Edward, his son by Jane Seymour, over the two princesses, Mary, the daughter of Catherine, and Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Edward VI., who was but ten years old at his accession, was weak in body, but was a most remarkable instance of intellectual precocity. The government now espoused the Protestant side. Somerset, the king's uncle, was at the head of the regency. The Six Articles (p. 407) were repealed. Protestant theologians from the Continent were taken into the counsels of the English prelates, Cranmer and Ridley. Under the leadership of Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer was framed, and the Articles, or creed, composed. The clergy were allowed to marry. The Anglican Protestant Church was fully organized, but the progress in the Protestant direction was rather too rapid for the sense of the nation. Somerset, who was fertile in schemes and a good soldier, invaded Scotland in order to enforce the fulfilling of the treaty which had promised the young Princess Mary of Scotland to Edward in marriage. He defeated the Scots at Pinkie, near Edinburgh; but the project as to the marriage failed. Mary was sent by the Scots to France, there to become the wife of Francis II. Land belonging to the Church was seized by Somerset to make room for Somerset House. A Catholic rebellion in Cornwall and Devonshire, provoked by the Protector's course, was suppressed with difficulty. The opposition to him on various grounds, which was led by the Duke of Northumberland, finally brought the Protector to the scaffold. But Northumberland proved to be less worthy to hold the protectorate than he, and labored to aggrandize his relatives. He was one of the nobles who made use of Protestantism as a means of enriching themselves. He persuaded the young king, when he was near his end, to settle the crown, contrary to what Parliament had determined, on Lady Jane Grey, Northumberland's daughter-in-law, a descendant of Henry's sister.

THE REIGN OF MARY.—Notwithstanding the Protector's selfish scheme, Mary succeeded to the throne without serious difficulty. Northumberland was beheaded as a traitor. An insurrection under Wyat was put down, and led to the execution of the unfortunate and innocent Lady Jane Grey. From her birth and all the circumstances of her life, Mary was in cordial sympathy with the Church of Rome and with Spain. She proceeded as rapidly as her more prudent advisers, including her kinsman Philip II., would allow, to restore the Catholic system. The married clergy were excluded from their places, and the Prayer-Book was abolished. The point where Parliament showed most hesitation was in reference to the royal supremacy. The nobles were afraid of losing their fields and houses, which had belonged to the Church. It was stipulated that the abbey lands, which were now held by the nobles and gentry as well as by the crown, should not be given up. Personally, Mary was inclined to any measure which obligation to the Catholic religion might dictate. Contrary to the general wish of her subjects, she married Philip II. Rigorous measures of repression were adopted against the Protestants. A large number of persons, eminent for talents and learning, were put to death on the charge of heresy. Among them were the three bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, who were burned at the stake at Oxford (1556). Gardiner, Bonner, and the rigid advocates of persecution, had full sway. These severe measures were not popular; and, although the queen was not in her natural temper cruel, they have given her the name of the "Bloody Mary." Each party used coercion when it had the upper hand. A great number of the Protestant clergy fled to the Continent. Mary sided with Spain against France, and, greatly to the disgust of the English, lost Calais (1558). Pope Paul IV. was disposed to press upon England the extreme demands of the Catholic Reaction. He was, moreover, hostile to the Spanish-Austrian house. There was great fear respecting the confiscated Church property: her own share in it, the queen persuaded Parliament to allow her to surrender. Cardinal Pole, a moderate man, no longer guided her policy. He was deprived of the office of papal legate. General discontent prevailed in the kingdom. The queen herself was dispirited, and her life ended in anxiety and sorrow.

CHARACTER OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603).—The nation welcomed Elizabeth to the throne. Her will was as imperious as that of her father. Her character was not without marked faults and foibles. She was vain, unwisely parsimonious, petulant, and overbearing, and evinced that want of truthfulness which was too common among rulers and statesmen at that period. But she had regal virtues,—high courage, devotion to the public good, for which she had the strength to sacrifice personal inclinations, together with the wisdom to choose astute counselors and to adhere to them. Her title to the throne was disputed. She had to contend against powerful and subtle adversaries. Her defense lay in the mutual jealousy of France and Spain, and in the determination of Englishmen not to be ruled by foreigners. Her reign was long and glorious.

HER RELIGIOUS POSITION.—In her doctrine, Elizabeth was a moderate Lutheran, not bitterly averse to the Church of Rome, but, in accordance with the prevalent English feeling which Henry VIII. represented, clinging to the royal supremacy. The Protestant system, with the Prayer-Book, and the hierarchy dependent on the sovereign, was now restored.

PROTESTANTISM IN SCOTLAND.—In case Elizabeth's claim to the crown were overthrown, the next heir would be Mary, Queen of Scots. Her grandmother was the eldest sister of Henry VIII. Her claim to the English crown was a standing menace to Elizabeth. When Mary's father, James V., died (1542), she was only a few days old. Her mother, Mary of Guise, became regent. The Reformation had then begun to gain adherents in Scotland. On the accession of Elizabeth, at a time when the religious wars in France were about to begin, the Scottish regent undertook repressive measures of increased rigor. The principal agent in turning Scotland to the Protestant side was John Knox, an intrepid preacher, honest, and rough in his ways, deeply imbued with the spirit of Calvinism, and free from every vestige of superstitious deference for human potentates. He returned from the Continent in 1555. Many of the turbulent nobles, partly from conviction and partly from covetousness, adopted the new opinions. More and more, however, Knox gained a hold upon the common people. His preaching was effective: one of its natural consequences was an outburst of iconoclasm. Even Philip II. was willing to have the nobles helped in the contest with the regent, Scotland being the ally of France. The queen-regent died in 1560. The Presbyterians now had full control, and Calvinistic Protestantism was legally established as the religion of the country.

THE QUEEN OF SCOTS.—Such was the situation when Mary, the young widow of Francis II., came back to Scotland to assume her crown. A zealous Catholic, she undertook to rule a turbulent people among whom the most austere type of Protestantism was the legal and cherished faith. She had personal charms which Elizabeth lacked, but as a sovereign she was wanting in the public virtue which belonged to her rival. Mary was quick-witted and full of energy; but she had been brought up in the court of Catherine de Medici, in an atmosphere of duplicity and lax morals. She had the vices of the Stuarts,—an extravagant idea of the sacred prerogatives of kings, a disregard of popular rights, a willingness to break engagements. Her levity, even if it had been kept within bounds, would have been offensive to her Calvinistic subjects. She had at heart the restoration of the Catholic system. In Knox she found a vigilant and fearless antagonist, with so much support among the nobles and the common people that her attempts at coercion, like her blandishments, proved powerless. Contrary to the wishes and plans of Elizabeth, she married Darnley, a Scottish nobleman (1565), whom, not without reason, she soon learned to despise. Her half-brother Murray, a very able man, and the other Protestant nobles, had been opposed to the match. She allowed herself an innocent, but unseemly, intimacy with an Italian musician, Rizzio. With the connivance of her husband, he was dragged out of her supper-room at Holyrood, and brutally murdered by Ruthven and other conspirators. In 1567, the house in which Darnley was sleeping, close by Edinburgh, was blown up with gunpowder, and he was killed. Whether Mary was privy to the murder, or not, is a point still in dispute. Certain it is that she gave her hand in marriage to Bothwell, the prime author of the crime. A revolt of her subjects followed. She was compelled to abdicate: Murray was made regent, and her infant son, James VI., was crowned at Stirling (1567). Escaping from confinement at Lochleven, she was defeated at Langside, and obliged to fly to England for protection.

EXECUTION OF MARY.—Elizabeth had no liking for the new religious system in Scotland. She hated the necessity of aiding rebels against their sovereign. But there was no alternative. In 1569 the defeat of the Huguenots in France was followed by a Catholic rebellion in the North of England. Elizabeth was excommunicated by Pope Pius V. There was a determination to dethrone her, and to hand over her crown to Mary. The drift of events was towards a conflict of England with Spain. The Duke of Norfolk, a leader in conspiracy and rebellion, who acted in concert with Philip and with Mary, was brought to the scaffold (1572). Elizabeth secretly aided the revolted subjects of Philip in the Netherlands, as Philip encouraged the malcontents in England and Ireland. The Queen of Scots was the center of the hopes of the enemies of England and of Elizabeth. When her complicity in the conspiracy of Babington, which involved a Spanish invasion and the dethronement and death of Elizabeth, was proved, Mary, after having been a captive for nineteen years, was condemned to death, and executed (1587) at Fotheringay Castle.

THE SPANISH ARMADA.—In 1585 Elizabeth openly sent troops to the Netherlands under the command of her favorite, Leicester. The contest with Spain was kept up on the sea by bold English mariners, who captured the Spanish treasure-ships, and harassed the Spanish colonies. It was a period of maritime adventure, when men like Frobisher, Hawkins, and Raleigh made themselves famous, and when Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world. In the course of this voyage, Drake had seized from the Spanish vessels, and from the settlements on the coast of Peru and Chili, a vast amount of silver and gold. When it was known that Philip was preparing to invade England, Drake sailed into the harbor of Cadiz, and destroyed the ships and stores there (1587). He burned every Spanish vessel that he could find. He boasted on his return that he had "singed the king of Spain's beard." Philip made ready a mighty naval expedition, the "Invincible Armada," for the conquest of England. The fame of it resounded through Europe. A Spanish force in the Netherlands, under Parma, was to coöperate with it. In England, there were preparations to meet the attack. Catholics and Protestants were united for the defense of the kingdom. At Tilbury, Queen Elizabeth reviewed her troops on horseback, saying to them in a spirited speech, "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too." The tempest, aiding the valor of the English seamen, dispersed the great fleet. No landing was effected, and the grand enterprise proved a complete failure. Only fifty-four out of the one hundred and fifty vessels succeeded in making their way back to Spain.

MONOPOLIES.—The queen knew how to yield to the people when she saw that they were determined upon a measure. This she did near the close of her reign, when the Commons called upon her to put an end to the monopolies which she had been in the habit of granting to individuals whom she specially liked.

THE EARL OF ESSEX.—The queen had her personal favorites. Among them, Robert Dudley, whom she made the Earl of Leicester, was the one of whom she was most fond. She esteemed him much above his merits. Another of her favorites was the young Earl of Essex, who was vain and ambitious. He went in 1596 with Lord Howard in an expedition which took and plundered Cadiz. Then he was sent to Ireland in command of an army. He failed, and came back to England without leave. He made a foolish attempt at insurrection, was tried for treason, and convicted; and Elizabeth reluctantly signed the warrant for his execution (1601).