to hold her favor they felt obliged to bestow, and by their expenditures in her service which she never troubled herself to reimburse, were brought to poverty.

Her parsimony, perhaps, may be accounted for partly by the fact that when she assumed rule the nation was in dire poverty, and only by the supreme efforts of Burghley was it saved from bankruptcy. Doubtless he deeply impressed upon the young Queen, who had lived a straitened life, the necessity of economy, a virtue which she had hitherto been obliged to practice herself, and now found it easy to practice upon others, while, prompted by inordinate selfishness, she indulged to the limit her passion for luxury and display. On Dudley, however, in spite of acts which bitterly angered her, she heaped favors until his death in 1588 when on his way from camp after the defeat of the Armada.

Says Lingard, "Only the week before his death he prevailed on her to promise him a much larger share of the royal authority than had ever, in such circumstances, been conferred on a subject," and "If tears are a proof of affection, those shed by the Queen on this occasion showed that hers was seated deeply in the heart."1

To recur to the belief in their sexual relations: In 1560, Anna Dowe, of Brentford, was the first of a long line of offenders to be sent to prison for asserting that Elizabeth was with child by Dudley; in 1563, Robert Brooke, of Devizes, was punished for a like offense; and in 1570, Marsham, a Norfolk gentleman, lost his ears for saying that "My Lord of Leicester had two children by the Queen."

As only occasional cases got recorded, it is apparent that they continued for a period of at least ten years. In 1571, twelve years after her accession, Parliament was invoked to make it a penal offense to speak of any other successor to the Crown of England than the natural issue of the Queen. The popular feeling with regard to Elizabeth's connection with 1 Lingard, vol. vi, p. 516 et seq.

Leicester on that occasion is well expressed by Camden. He says, "I myself . . . have heard some oftentimes say, that the word was inserted into the Act of purpose by Leicester, that it might one day obtrude upon the English some Bastard son of his for the Queen's natural issue." 1

It was contended that the term "natural" distinctly meant a birth out of wedlock, and that "lawful" was the only proper term to have been used.

There is much more upon this subject which shows beyond doubt the relations of Elizabeth and Dudley; indeed, they were quite fully set forth in a book by John Barclay, published in Latin in 1621, entitled the "Argenis," to which attention will be given hereafter, when our object in treating particularly of these relations will appear.

Though the Queen was known to be a lover of letters, especially of poetry and the drama, a large portion of her subjects were incapable of sympathizing with her in this regard. Opposition to the theater was especially active, and players were held in disrepute. This feeling became so strong that in 1575 they were banished from London proper and obliged to set up their stage in the suburbs. A fierce controversy respecting the dangerous influence of dramatic exhibitions upon public morals followed, and when Philip Stubbes's denunciation of "Stage Plays and their Evils" was published, it broke out afresh, and engaging the attention of Sergeantat-Law Fleetwood, who was then active in ferreting out Popish plots, for which service he earned the honor he coveted of being made Sergeant to the Queen, he turned his attention to the players, and was soon able to write to Burghley as follows:

By searche I do perceive that there is no one thing of late more lyke to have renewed this contagion of treason then the practice of an idle sorte of people which have been infamous in all good common-weales, I mean those histriones, common players, 1 William Camden, Elizabeth, p. 167.

who now daylie but speciallye on holydayes, set up boothes whereunto the youthe resorteth excessively, and there taketh infection.1

In 1583, it was thought best still further to tighten the screws. Archbishop Grindal, who was supposed to have too tender a heart, and had been sequestered from his archiepiscopal functions, died, and his successor, who had already displayed his harsh spirit, was at once empowered by the Queen to send inquisitors throughout the country in imitation of her Spanish neighbors, "To visit and reform all errors, heresies, schisms, in a word, to regulate all opinion," and to use all "Means and ways which they could devise; that is, by the rack, by torture, by inquisition, by imprisonment." To achieve their purpose, they could go to any person and "Administer to him an oath called 'ex officio,' by which he was bound to answer all questions, and might thereby be obliged to accuse himself or his most intimate friend." 2 Verily it was an age in which social vice and theological piety were bedfellows. This oath was intended to strike terror into the hearts of all whose opinions were not strictly in accordance with those of their rulers. Players, Roman Catholics, and supposed practicers of magic art, felt the first force of the storm. The following letter from the Bishop of London to Secretary Cecil shows the measures taken against the theaters:

Upon Sondaie, my Lord sent two aldermen to the court for the suppressing and pulling downe of the theartre and curten, for all the Lords agreed thereunto save my Lord Chamberlayn and Mr. Vice-Chamberlayn; but we obtayned a letter to suppress them all.3

To carry out the measures adopted against Papists and those suspected of witchcraft, officers, denominated "witch1 Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, vol. 1, p. 166 et seq. London, 1838.

2 David Hume, The History of England, vol. VI, pp. 152-54. London, 1803. Thomas Wright, ibid., vol. 11, p. 228.

finders," were employed to go about the country to find suspects. Witnesses, either to ingratiate themselves with the officers or to pay off grudges against neighbors or for pecuniary profit, were ever at hand to aid these villains, many of whom were of the vilest character, and hundreds of innocent people were cruelly tortured and executed upon the flimsiest pretext; many for only having moles and other blemishes upon their persons. The portrait of Matthew Hopkins, "Witchfinder General," is still preserved at Magdalen College. So prevalent was the belief in witchcraft that in a sermon before the Queen Bishop Jewel used these words:

It may please Your Grace to understand that witches, sorcerers, within these last few years are marvelously increased within Your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine away even unto death. Their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. I pray God they never practise further than upon the Subject.1

Nothing better could have been devised to inflame the public mind, and the fever continued throughout the reign of Elizabeth and her successor, the "English Solomon," who wrote a book in support of the belief in witchcraft.

The Roman Catholics fared as hardly. Camden, writing of the distrust of their loyalty in 1584, gives us a description of the methods employed to ferret them out. He says:

Counterfeit letters were privily sent in the name of the Queen of Scots and the Fugitives, and left in Papists' Houses; spies were sent abroad up and down the Countrey to take notice of People's Discourse and lay hold of their words. Reporters of vain and idle stories were admitted and credited. Hereupon many were brought into Suspicion.2

We may well believe that these were among the common methods for the suppression of independent thought employed during this reign.

1 John Strype, M.A., Annals of the Reformation, vol. 1, p. 11. Oxford, 1824. 2 William Camden, Elizabeth, p. 294. London, 1688.

But the current of human progress, though often obstructed and turned aside, eventually washes away its barriers and pursues its predestined course. A religious faith could not be extirpated, nor could the drama be suppressed, for it was too deeply rooted in the affections of the people. It was, however, into the London already described that William Shakspere came after a disreputable life in Stratford and began his struggle for existence.

At this time the popular interest in dramatic exhibitions was on the increase, and the writers of the time were attracted by the promise which the future offered them in the field of histrionic art. The plays then on the stage are fairly well described by Sydney:

All their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained.1

Such plays as "King Darius," "Promos and Cassandra," "Ferrex and Porrex," and, especially, "A pleasant comedie called Common Conditions," delighted the play-goers of the early reign of Elizabeth.

English literature since Chaucer's time had produced no great name. Those who could read English or Italian depended principally upon the foreign romance for their literary delectation. Of course the Arthurian romances and many old legendary tales had come down from remote times, and were read by the few who were proficient in the gentle art; but the masses were debarred from such recreation, being unable to read. London, with a population of hardly two hundred thousand, reeked with filth and disease, as faulty in sanitary conditions as the worst Oriental city of to-day. Carrion kites served to clean the streets; floors were covered with rushes to

1 The Library of Old English Prose Writers, vol. 11, p. 75. Cambridge, 1812.