likewise a gainer by the reputation acquired by English knights and soldiers, in fighting against the league in France, and Philip II. in the Netherlands. The country assumed her proper station in the van of the defenders of liberty; the blood of Sir Philip Sidney was shed in the cause of the freedom of the world; and tyrants trembled at the name of Elizabeth and of England.

Secondly. She took care not to ask too much money of the people. Her treaties with Henry IV. resemble more the hard bargain of a Swiss Canton than the generous alliance of a powerful and friendly sovereign. She well knew that Parliament held the purse, and must, therefore, become absolute master of a distressed or expensive sovereign. In her situation economy was power. Happy would it have been for Leo X., for Charles I., for Louis XVI., if they and their immediate predecessors had been aware of this key-stone of their fate. The Reformation, the civil wars of England, and the revolution in France, had their rise in disordered finances. Men will

readily submit to a bad government, but will not easily consent to pay a dear price for it.

Thirdly. She yielded to the popular voice, and cultivated popular favour, whenever it could be done with dignity and safety. No one knew better how to buy the nation's affections with a phrase, to declare on occasion, that her treasure was better in her subjects' purses than in her own coffers, and that her best guards were the affections of her people. She could be severe and kind by turns. Thus, having at one time excited great murmurs among the house of commons by forbidding liberty of speech, she soon thought proper to revoke her commands. But nothing shows her policy better than her conduct respecting monopolies. There was hardly any article of which a monopoly was not granted by the Crown. The evil grew so grievous that even Elizabeth's house of commons echoed with angry speeches and universal complaint. The Queen instantly yielded. She did not acknowledge that the debates of the House of Commons had had any weight with her, but she informed them, through her

secretary of state, that she consented to quash those monopolies that were illegal, and to submit to an enquiry with respect to the rest. Secretary Cecil made an apology to the House for having compared them to a school, and said, he by no means intended to deny the freedom of speech.

*

In her manners also the Queen took care to show the greatest confidence in the people. She knew that nothing is so pleasing as the condescension of supreme power. She therefore displayed her greatness by the pomp of state, and her goodness by the affability of her language.

By such means Queen Elizabeth was enabled to maintain a stable authority over an unquiet people. France was distracted by civil war; the king of Spain was employed in a bootless and bloody quarrel with his insurgent subjects in the Netherlands and Holland; Germany was shaken in every limb by the Reformation; but the Queen of England reaped the reward of prudence and courage in the tranquillity and affectionate obedience of her kingdom and

* Note (C) at the end of the volume.

people. Her power was enormous. When the Commons remonstrated, she speedily dissolved them; at one time she told them not to meddle in affairs of state: still less did she permit any proposal of alteration in the church; and she repeatedly imprisoned, or procured to be imprisoned, those who gainsayed her high pleasure in these matters. * She dispensed with those laws which were unpalatable to her,. and regulated the behaviour of her people by ordinance and arbitrary mandate. She forbade the cultivation of woad, as offensive to her royal nostrils. The court of Star-Chamber, and the court of High Commission, not being sufficiently arbitrary, it was ordered that every person who imported forbidden books, or committed other offences specified, should be punished by martial law. Those who employed the press as an organ of discussion were speedily condemned. Mr. John Udall, a puritan minister, charged with having written "a slanderous and infamous libel against the Queen's Majesty," was tried for a felony, and condemned. The

* Note (D) at the end of the volume.

sentence was never executed, but the poor man, after several years' confinement, died in prison. The judge told the jury to find him only author of the book, for the offence had been already determined to be felony by the judges. A gentleman who had written a book to dissuade the Queen from marrying a French prince, was sentenced by a law of Queen Mary to lose his hand. A puritan of the name of Penry was condemned and executed for seditious papers found in his pocket. Struck by these arbitrary proceedings, Mr. Hume has compared the government of Elizabeth to the modern government of Turkey, and remarking, that in both cases the sovereign was deprived of the power of levying money on his subjects, he asserts, "that in both countries this limitation, unsupported by other privileges, appears rather prejudicial to the people." It is needless to say much on this fanciful analogy, so unworthy of a great historian. Did it ever happen that a Turkish house of commons prevailed on the Sultan to correct the extortion of his pachas, as the English house of commons induced Elizabeth to surrender the odious monopolies ? Did