leave no heir, then Mary Queen of Scots would succeed her, and she too was a Roman Ca- Difficulties of tholic, and what was worse, a woman who, the Succession. by her marriage, would entangle England with some other state. And Mary, unlike Elizabeth, had no aversion to marriage. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign Mary was wife to Francis II. the Mary Stuart's French king, also a Roman Catholic. It First Marriage. seemed as if England had escaped Spain only to fall into the jaws of France.

There was no

Here again fortune fought for us. child of this marriage either; and Francis II. died while still a young man, after only a few months of rule. Thus no heir was left to unite the crowns of Scotland and France, with the probability of some day adding to them that of England; and Mary Queen of Scots was more or less cut off from her alliance with France that might have proved so dangerous. She married, as we have seen, a second, and even a third time; first her cousin, Lord Darnley, and afterwards the Earl of Bothwell. But these were not dangerous royal marriages, for they did not give foreign states any claims over England or Scotland.

Now it is time to recall to our memories who Mary Queen of Scots herself was. She too was

the descendant of one of these royal marriages so important in this age. She was the grandchild of James IV. of Scotland and Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. of England. This was her claim to the English throne. And by her second Mary's Claim husband, Darnley, she had a son James. on England. If this son were to live he would unite the thrones

of England and Scotland. Little objection could be

found to a union of this sort: it was the union of two kingdoms in the same island, with people of the same

race, language and interests similar, and, above all, both in the main Protestant. One thing indeed looked bad. James Stuart was likely to be of his mother's religion, a Roman Catholic.

This difficulty, however, vanished with the others. When after Mary's defeat at Langside she took refuge in England, Elizabeth kept her a prisoner there. It was natural that her Catholic friends should make Plots against plots on her behalf, all the more that they Elizabeth. were stirred up by the Spaniards to do SO. First came an insurrection in the north of England, led by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland. Then at intervals of a few years came Ridolfi's plot, and the Jesuit plot, headed by a priest named Campion, and finally Babington's plot, all with the same object, namely, to murder Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne. As Elizabeth found Execution of Mary a continual source of danger, we Mary. need not be surprised that she at last caused her to be beheaded. Such an act may perhaps be excused, but it cannot be commended. Mary had come to her for assistance; instead of getting it, she had been kept a prisoner nineteen years. Mary no doubt had plotted; but Elizabeth had done nothing to win the slightest gratitude from her, nor had she left her any hope of escaping, except by plots.

brought up

The result of Mary's long imprisonment and death had been to leave her son James, King of Scotland and next heir to the throne of England, James VI. in the hands of her enemies in Scotland, a Protestant. who brought him up as a Presbyterian. We shall see that he did not keep to this church, but he always remained a Protestant, and as such England was ready to welcome him as king. Thus,

when Elizabeth died the two crowns were united Union of in one person. The two nations so long the Crowns. apparently hopeless enemies, became reconciled, and James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England.

XXI. ELIZABETH AND THE ARMADA.

Elizabeth's reign is striking from whatever point of view we look at it. It sees the establishment of the English Church, and the preparing of the way for the union of the crowns of England and Scotland; it is marked by important social legislation—questions of wages, of coinage, of poor relief, are all dealt with, and upon the whole successfully; it is the age of the great poets, Shakespeare and Spenser. Any British one of these things would be enough to Maritime stamp a reign as remarkable. Yet there is Policy. something beyond all this; for it is in this reign that British policy, as we know it, is settled. Britain is to be strong at sea, and to spread her power over distant colonies.

There was nothing in Mary Tudor's reign that made Englishmen feel more shame than the loss of Calais. It had been in English hands since the days of Edward I.; it seemed disgraceful to lose it. But in truth Calais was no longer of any use. The old policy of trying to conquer territory from the King of France was dead and gone. Even the enmity Hostility to Mari- was gone too. Englishmen no longer time Spain makes hated France, but Spain. And Spain England Maritime. being strong at sea and in the New World, England had to look to her fleets. Since we had to fight against a maritime and colonial power,

we became maritime and colonial ourselves in doing it.

Although in name Elizabeth did not go to war with Spain till 1587, yet in reality all her reign was one long war. The war differed from any war England had fought before, since it went on, far from Europe, in the Spanish main, and on American shores. It was not called war; neither Queen nor Parliament admitted its existence.

It

The Adventurers.

was the work of the Adventurersmerchants and nobles who sent out ships to the Spanish main, ready to trade or plunder as might be most convenient. The Adventurers were not indeed strait-laced. Hawkins, for example, thought nothing of taking slaves from Africa to the Spanish settlements, and compelling the Spaniards, by force of arms, to buy them. But still the slave-trader Hawkins and the buccaneers were the forerunners of the makers of our empire. They went where gain drew them, reckless of danger; and where they went British power followed.

Francis Drake stands as an was best in the Adventurers.

example of all that He feared no odds

against him; he it was who led seventy Drake. desperate Englishmen to attack the fortified Spanish town of Nombré de Dios in Central America-the Treasure House of the World as it was called, since the Spaniards sent thither all the silver they collected-and took it; he, again, crossed the isthmus of Panama, and surprised trains of mules laden with Spanish silver; he, too, was the first Englishman to sail into the Pacific. The Spaniards had thought themselves safe there. Drake came down on them like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, sacked the towns of Lima and Callao, captured a