It is obvious, from the position as official head of the reformed Church in which the Act of Supremacy had first placed our Henry VIII., and had then confirmed, in a position of scarcely less authority, his daughter Elizabeth, that the form which Protestantism took in England, as the State religion, differed from its forms elsewhere. On the Continent, none of the rulers of the States that had adopted the doctrines of Luther or of Calvin had thought of claiming such a position. In England under Henry and under Elizabeth it must have seemed that, while protesting against the authority of the Pope over the Church, Englishmen acquiesced in a like authority vested in the Crown. It was a transfer of allegiance. But Luther, and yet more so Calvin, would have bitterly resented that the Church should be under any authority except that of her own choosing. Moreover, the English Protestants retained many of the ceremonies and services, and performed many of the rites, of the Church of Rome. Calvin's ideal of worship was that it should consist in the simplest and most direct communication of man with God, with no aids of beautiful music and rich colour and other appeal to the emotions, such as the Romans used. All this he specially hated. The rules of life among pious followers of Calvin were extremely strict. Austere behaviour and a serious expression of countenance were rigidly demanded of them. They regarded even the most innocent amusement as contrary to the spirit of their religion.

This is perhaps a difference which it would be out of place, in a story sketched in mere outlines, to mention even at such short length as this, were it not that it was a difference which had serious consequences in the reigns of those Scottish kings who succeeded Elizabeth on the throne of England. How that came about was thus:

The Puritans

In the reign of Mary, the Roman Catholic queen, very many English Protestants had fled abroad. They had gone to lands where the Calvinistic doctrines were followed. Under Elizabeth they ventured back into their native land; and the form of Protestantism that they found there was a shock to them. They could not range themselves as members of a Church that had practices which they detested. They formed themselves into a separate sect under the name of Puritans. At once they found themselves in opposition to, not in conformity with (and were therefore sometimes spoken of as Non-conformists), the national Church. They were subjected to persecution even by a Protestant Government. From denying the authority of the Crown as head of the Church, it was not a very long step to denying the authority of the Crown in other, less spiritual, matters. And it was this denial that led to Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, to the cutting off of Charles I.'s head, to the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers to America, and all that was to follow therefrom. Surely we are justified in finding a space to note a difference of opinion in which such astonishing things had their beginning.

During Elizabeth's reign our country was reduced to its insular boundaries, and yet never before does there seem to have been a time when England was so aware of her greatness as she was under Elizabeth. Never, moreover, was there such a splendour of English literary achievement, from the plays of Shakespeare downward.

The truth is that she really was doing a very great work, though probably Englishmen of that day only dimly realised what that work was. She, with the Dutch and other Protestant States, was gradually wearing down the greatness of Spain, and all that Spain stood for.

What Spain stood for was despotic power in Church and State. Our Henry and Elizabeth were despotic in both, but the Stuart kings who succeeded them were not made of the right human stuff for despots, and both Church and State won freedom under them. Spain's power suffered a gradual but constant diminution. She was fighting on all sides—constantly struggling with France or Italy.

And Elizabeth's seamen kept harrying her in every quarter of the Atlantic and even in the far Pacific, The English Colony of Newfoundland was established. Elizabeth had relations as far east and south as Persia, as far east and north as Muscovy, where Russia was gradually consolidating herself.

Russia gained an important victory over the Turks in 1569. Moscow, her capital, was indeed burnt by invading Mongols as late as 1571, but in the year following the conquerors were themselves defeated. The other Slav State, Poland, gained a great accession of strength by absorbing the large territories of Livonia and Lithuania. During the sixteenth century we do not find the Scandinavian nations taking much direct part in the big story, but in 1587 the King of Sweden was King of Poland also. The general tendency of affairs in that part of the world's stage, however, was for those two, Poland and Russia, to be forming themselves into two strong nations of Slav people, on the eastern border of the Teutonic people of Germany. That is an element in the story to be borne in mind.

Affairs in the East