I have essayed also, as a most important task, to remove a vulgar prejudice, very general on the minds of both parties, and to do justice to the Catholic Nobility of England, who framed, and have in every age upheld her liberties and constitution against encroaching Popes and tyrannical kings. It is a common, almost universal, political error that the age of Mary and Elizabeth was a mere struggle between Protestants and Roman Catholics for ascendancy. Gardiner, the uncompromising persecutor of the Protestants, who desired to set up the Inquisition, and to extirpate heresy with fire and sword, was “fiercely jealous” of the independence of England, and when the Spanish Ambassador urged the marriage of Mary with Philip, he told him that Nobles and people were against the Pope, and against foreign interference of all sorts, that Mary could not marry Philip without a dispensation from the Pope, which must be kept secret. The country would not tolerate it.—(Froude, vi, 119.)

Queen Mary herself told Commendone, the Pope’s messenger, that for the present she was in the power of the People, of whom the majority mortally detested the Holy See, and that the Lords of the Council were in possession of vast estates which had been alienated from the Church, and they feared their titles might be called in question.—(Froude vi, 89. Citing letter of Pope Julius III, to Pole). Yet certainly there was not one Protestant on her Council. Paget, and he was not a Protestant, was the only man who favoured the Spanish match. But he was opposed to persecution, and would not permit the Queen to alter the succession. He told Gardiner that if she should send Elizabeth to the Tower her own life would not be safe for a single day.—(Froude vi., 120.)

The nation was unanimous in the dread of a marriage between their Queen and Philip. They feared that England might then sink into a Spanish dependency, and have to endure the horrors inflicted on the Low Countries. They wished to keep their country isolated and not entangled in the wars of the continent. They therefore desired that their Queens should marry with the English Nobility (Froude vi, 92), who were then as they are now, every way superior in family fortune, the eminent qualifications of mind or body—above all in social and political importance, to any rank or class of men in the world, many of the great Houses of the Aristocracy being allied to our Plantagenet kings, the greatest heroes, legislators, and rulers that ever governed men.

It is true that Protestantism, the right of private judgment, is favourable to Civil Liberty, as was evident in the struggle of our Puritan Fathers with the Stuarts. But the principles of the English Constitution were laid before Protestantism had a being or a name. Who were the men that wrung from the tyrant John the Great Charter at Runnemede, and many another after it, and maintained them in defiance of all the thunders of Rome?—Who passed the Statutes of Premunire, of Provisors, of Mortmain, and all the other Acts for restraining the illegitimate authority of the Pope and the Clergy, and defending their estates and country against both Regal and Ecclesiastical Despotism? The Catholic Nobility of England, who knew well how to distinguish between their Creed and their Civil Polity, between their duty to their Church and their duty to their Country, to themselves—to Posterity! And so long as that Posterity are worthy of the great inheritance they have bequeathed to them, so long as Englishmen shall be capable of appreciating Civil Liberty and the value of their Constitution, the founders of that Constitution shall receive their just reward, Immortal Glory!

Where is that Constitution now? Let the Protestant Parliaments that have legislated during late years, and regardless of our Ancient Constitution, have delivered over Englishmen to be taxed by boards, without the consent of Parliament, and to be fined! imprisoned! degraded! ruined! in their persons, characters, and fortunes, by arbitrary Magistrates, Councils, and Officials, without Trial by Jury, and who but for the timely protest and warning of the Judges, would have abolished that great Bulwark of Civil Liberty altogether. Let them answer! Let the great Thaumaturgists who pulled the strings of these parliamentary puppets, and before whom they danced, answer! England may some day awake from her torpor, to examine that legislation, and to ask the question—Where?—Then—What then?

Some people not sufficiently read in the history of those times, may be startled at the extraordinary nature of the facts which constitute the action of the Drama; and may consider them exaggerated, if not altogether improbable. I intended a National Drama, and I have adhered to history. I shall be borne out by authority. Those who are well informed, will recognise in the first Act the actual picture our seaboard presented at the time. The pious Catholic may feel scandalized at the treatment of the Pope, and the sack of Rome by the generals of Charles the Fifth at the head of a Spanish army. I have not invented the transaction. It would be impossible to exaggerate its atrocity. And Philip with all his zeal for his professed religion, so long as it subserved his ambition, was quite ready to repeat his father’s lesson, if the Pope had trespassed on his dominion. Further, though he was anxious to have Elizabeth assassinated, he was entirely opposed to the Bull of Excommunication, or the Pope’s interference in the temporal government of her kingdom.

With respect to myself and the literary merits of my work, I am very sensible of the little fame (as small as the emolument) that can accrue to me. It was not my aim to contest the palm of genius and eloquence with the great Dramatists of the age, who with so much talent and success, minister to the amusement of the Public. My humble effort must be regarded as a literary experiment—I was anxious to test whether Truth was not stronger than Fiction, and if so, whether the Drama might not, in abler hands, become the great Pioneer, if not the exponent and teacher of history. Secondly, whether it could not be conducted on principles free from the objections which Moralists now raise against it. I have therefore carefully excluded everything having a tendency to excite those emotions, which the wisdom of Philosophers, and the guides of society in every age have agreed ought to be kept in abeyance.

The Greeks, in timid foresight of the abuse, forbade that women should appear upon the stage. Without going so far I have shunned the evil they feared. There is not a love scene in my Drama, nor anything which could minister to that dangerous passion. I had a higher aim! to call the attention of my country to the origin and principles of her greatness; to hold up to her view the valour, the achievements, the glory of our ancestors; to excite in their descendants a generous rivalry, and to rouse again the national pride: the spirit and the patriotism of England. If I shall have succeeded in this, I shall have attained the summit of my ambition—I shall have reaped the priceless reward—the satisfaction of having done my duty!

I cannot conclude without my humble acknowledgment of the public debt to Mr. Froude, who has done so much to vindicate the character of Elizabeth and the glory of his country from the foul aspersions of a party alike hostile to England and humanity; and my personal obligation, for through his great History, suggesting the subject, and so much of the material for the construction of my Drama.

WILLIAM MAC OUBREY.