We are come now to the end of Queen Elizabeth’s long and famous reign. She died when she had been queen forty-five years, and was very unhappy at her death. Her favourite Lord Essex behaved so ill after he came from Ireland, that the queen’s counsellors ordered him to be put to death. Now, the queen had once given him a ring, when he was her greatest favourite, and told him, that if he would send it to her whenever he was in danger, she would save his life and forgive any of his faults. She thought he would send this ring to her, when he knew he was condemned to have his head cut off; and so he did; but a cruel woman to whom he trusted it, to give the queen, never did so till long after Essex was dead; and then Elizabeth, who was old and ill herself, was so vexed, that she hardly ever spoke to anybody again, and died in a few days afterwards at Richmond.
It would make our little history too long, if I tried to tell you of all the wise and good things done by Elizabeth, or if I told you the names of half the famous men who lived in her time.
Besides Essex, there was her other favourite, Leicester, a clever bad man.
Her god-son, Harrington, belonged to the learned men and poets of her time; but neither he nor any of the rest, though there were many, were to be compared to Shakespeare, whose plays everybody reads and loves, nor even to Spenser, who lived and died in Elizabeth’s reign.
Then there were her wise counsellors Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Burleigh, and Walsingham, and, all the generals and admirals I have told you about. I must just mention one more, because you will wish to be like him when you grow up. He was Sir Philip Sidney, the best and wisest, and most learned, and bravest. He was killed in battle. When he was lying on the ground, very hot and thirsty, and bleeding to death, a friend was bringing him a cup of water; but he happened to look round, and saw a poor dying soldier who had no friends near him, looking eagerly towards the cup. Sir Philip did not touch it, but sent to be given to that soldier, who blessed him as he was dying. And that act of self-denial and mercy makes all who hear the name of Philip Sidney bless him even now.
CHAPTER XLVII.
JAMES I.—1603 to 1625.
How the King of Scotland became King of England also; how he and the Queen behaved very unwisely; how he ill-treated the Papists and the Puritans; how the Papists intended to destroy the King and the Parliament, but were prevented; how Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham visited France and Spain: how King James did many foolish things, and left his subjects discontented.
James Stuart, the first King James of England, but the sixth of Scotland, was one of the most foolish and the most mischievous kings we ever had in England. He was the son of the unhappy Mary Queen of Scots, and after she was put in prison the first time, the Scotch lords made James king, though he was quite an infant. The lords gave him the best masters they could find to teach him, and he learned what was in books very well, but nobody could ever teach him how to behave wisely.
When Queen Elizabeth died, James, king of Scotland, became king of England, because he was Elizabeth’s cousin, and from that time England and Scotland have been under one king, and are called Great Britain.
As soon as James heard the queen was dead, he set out from Scotland to come to London; for as Scotland was then a very poor country, he and a great number of Scotchmen who came with him thought they had nothing to do but to come to England, and get all the money they could by all sorts of ways. Then he made so many lords and knights that people began to laugh at him and his new nobles. But, worst of all, he fancied that parliaments had no business to prevent kings from doing whatever they pleased, and taking money from their subjects whenever they liked.