As you please, Dr. Arbuthnot replied. We shall hardly lose ourselves in this beaten field of history. And, besides, as your undertaking is so adventurous, it is but reasonable you should have the choice of your own method.
You are in the common opinion, I perceive, resumed Mr. Addison, that Elizabeth’s government was attended with all possible disadvantages. On the contrary, it appears to me that the security and even splendour of her reign is chiefly to be accounted for from the fortunate CIRCUMSTANCES of her situation.
Of these the FIRST, that demands our notice, is the great affair of religion.
The principles of Protestantism had now for many years been working among the people. They had grown to that head in the short reign of Edward VI. that the bloody severities of his successor served only to exasperate the zeal, with which these principles had been embraced and promoted. Elizabeth, coming to the crown at this juncture, was determined, as well by interest as inclination, to take the side of the new religion. I say by interest, as well as inclination. And, I think, I have reason for the assertion. For though the persons in power, and the clergy throughout the kingdom, were generally professed papists; yet they were most of them such as had conformed in king Edward’s days, and were not therefore much to be feared for any tie, their profession could really have on their consciences. Whereas, on the other hand, it was easy to see, from many symptoms, that the general bent of the nation was towards Protestantism; and that, too, followed with a spirit, which must in the end prevail over all opposition. Under these circumstances, then, it was natural for the queen, if she had not been otherwise led by her principles, and the interest of her title, to favour the Reformation.
The truth is, she came into it herself so heartily, and provided so effectually for its establishment, that we are not to wonder she became the idol of the Reformed, at the same time that the papal power through all Europe was confederated against her. The enthusiasm of her Protestant subjects was prodigious. It was raised by other considerations; but confirmed in all orders of the state by the ease they felt in their deliverance from the tyranny of the church; and in the great especially, by the sweets they tasted in their enjoyment of the church-revenues. It was, in short, one of those extraordinary conjunctures, in which the public danger becomes the public security; when religion and policy, conscience and interest, unite their powers to support the authority of the prince, and to give fidelity, vigour, and activity to the obedience of the subject.
And thus it was, continued he, that so warm and unconquerable a zeal appeared in defence of the queen against all attempts of her enemies. Her people were so thoroughly Protestant, as to think no expence of her government too great, provided they could but be secured from relapsing into Popery. And her parliaments were disposed to wave all disputes about the stretch of her prerogative, from a sense of their own and the common danger.
In magnifying this advantage of the zeal and union of Elizabeth’s good subjects, you forgot, said Dr. Arbuthnot, that two restless and inveterate factions were contending, all her lifetime, within her own kingdom.
I am so far from forgetting that circumstance, returned Mr. Addison, that I esteem it ANOTHER of the great advantages of her situation.
The contrary tendencies of those factions in some respects defeated each other. But the principal use of them was, that, by means of their practices, some domestic plot, or foreign alarm, was always at hand, to quicken the zeal and inflame the loyalty of her people. But to be a little more particular about the factions of her reign.
The Papist was, in truth, the only one she had reason to be alarmed at. The Puritan had but just begun to shew himself, though indeed with that ferocity of air and feature, which signified clearly enough what spirit he was of, and what, in good time, he was likely to come to. Yet even he was kept in tolerable humour, by a certain commodious policy of the queen; which was, so to divide her regards betwixt the Church and the Puritans, as made it the interest of both to keep well with her. ’Tis true, these last felt the weight of her resentment sometimes, when they ventured too saucily to oppose themselves to the establishment. But this was rarely, and by halves: and, when checked with the most rigour, they had the satisfaction to see their patrons continue in the highest places at court, and, what is more, in the highest degree of personal favour.