A Child's History of the World

by V. M. Hillyer

But I’m not going to tell you how old Elizabeth was, though she did live and reign a great many years.

I’m going to tell you some of the things that happened during her long life, for the time when she lived is what is called the Age of Elizabeth.

There was a young man named Raleigh living when Elizabeth became queen. One day when it was raining and the streets were muddy, Elizabeth was about to cross the street. Raleigh saw her and, to keep her from soiling her shoes, ran forward, took off his beautiful velvet cape, and threw it in the puddle where she was about to step, so that she might cross upon it as upon a carpet. The queen was greatly pleased with this thoughtful and gentlemanly act, and she made him a knight, so that he was then called Sir Walter Raleigh, and ever after that he was one of her special friends.

Sir Walter Raleigh was much interested in the new country of America. Cabot had claimed a great part of it for England almost a hundred years before, but England had done nothing about it. Raleigh thought something should be done about it; he thought English people should settle there, so that other countries like Spain, which had made so many settlements in America, would not get ahead of England. So Raleigh got together several companies of English people and sent them over to an island called Roanoke, which was just off the coast of the present State of North Carolina. At that time, however, almost the whole coast of the United States as far north as Canada was called Virginia. It had been named Virginia in honor of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth.

Some of these Roanoke colonists became discouraged with the hardships they had to suffer and so gave up and sailed back home again. Those who remained all disappeared. Where? No one knows. We think they must either have been killed by the Indians or have died of starvation. At any rate, not one was left to tell the tale. Among these Roanoke colonists was the first English child born in America—a girl, who had been named Virginia Dare, for the queen was very popular and a great many girls were named Virginia after her.

Some tobacco was brought back from Virginia, and Sir Walter Raleigh learned to smoke. This was such a strange and unknown thing at that time that one day while he was smoking a pipe a servant who saw smoke coming out of his mouth thought he was on fire and, running for a bucket of water, emptied it over his head.

Virginia is still famous for its tobacco. At first tobacco was supposed to be very healthful, for the Indians seemed to have very good health and they smoked a great deal. Afterward, however, in the next reign, King James so hated tobacco that he wrote a book against it and forbade it to be used.

After Queen Elizabeth had died, Raleigh was put in prison, for it was said he was plotting against the new king James, who came after Elizabeth. The prison where he was placed was the Tower of London, the old castle that William the Conqueror had built. Here Raleigh was kept for thirteen long years, and to pass the time away he wrote a “History of the World.” But at last he was put to death as many other great men were also.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there lived the great writer of plays, the greatest writer the world has ever known. This man was William Shakspere.

Shakspere’s father could not write his name. Shakspere himself spent only six years at school. As a boy he was rather wild, and he was arrested for hunting deer in the forest of Sir Thomas Lucy at Stratford.