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    <Metadata name="Content">biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Page_topic">biography of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Author">Marilee Mongello</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Title">Secondary Sources: Queen Elizabeth by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892: Chapter XI</Metadata>
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    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;7&quot;&gt;Queen Elizabeth&lt;br&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;
    &lt;font size=&quot;4&quot;&gt;by Edward Spencer Beesly, 1892&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
    &lt;img border=&quot;2&quot; src=&quot;_httpdocimg_/eliz1-ermine.jpg&quot; width=&quot;400&quot; height=&quot;478&quot; alt=&quot;'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas Hilliard&quot;&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
    &lt;i&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas 
    Hilliard;&lt;br&gt;from the &lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=0&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fwww.marileecody.com%2feliz1-images.html&quot;&gt;Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I&lt;/a&gt; website&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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    &lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;
      &lt;b&gt;CHAPTER XI&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
      &lt;b&gt;DOMESTIC AFFAIRS: 1588-1601&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;IT was a boast of Elizabeth that when once 
    her servants were chosen she did not lightly displace them. Difference of 
    opinion from their mistress, or from one another, did not involve 
    resignation or dismissal, because, though they were free to speak their 
    minds, all had to carry out with fidelity and even zeal, whatever policy the 
    Queen prescribed. This condition they accepted; not only the astute and 
    compliant Burghley, but the more eager and opinionated Walsingham; and 
    therefore they had practically a life-tenure of office. Soon after the 
    Armada the first generation of them began to disappear. Bacon, Sussex, and 
    Bedford were already gone. Leicester died in 1588; his brother Warwick, and 
    Mildmay in 1589; Walsingham and Randolph in 1591; Hatton in 1592; Grey de 
    Wilton in 1593; Knollys and Hunsdon in 1596. Of the trusty servants with 
    whom she began her reign, Burghley alone remained. The leading men of the 
    new generation were Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's second son, trained to 
    business under his father's eye, and of qualities similar, though inferior; 
    Nottingham (formerly Howard of Effingham), a straightforward man of no great 
    ability, but acceptable to the Queen for his father's services and his own 
    (and not the less so for his fine presence); the accomplished Buckhurst; the 
    brilliant Raleigh; and, younger than the rest, Essex. The last was the son 
    of a man much favoured by Elizabeth. Leicester was his step-father, Knollys 
    his grandfather, Hunsdon his great-uncle, Walsingham his father-in-law, 
    Burghley his guardian. Ardent, impulsive, presumptuous, a warm friend, a 
    rancorous enemy, profuse in expense, lawless in his amours, jealous of his 
    equals, brooking no superior, impatient of all rule or order that delayed 
    him from leaping at once to the highest place,--he was possessed with a most 
    exaggerated notion of his own capacity, which appears to have been only 
    moderate. As the ward of Burghley he had been much in the company of his 
    future enemy, Robert Cecil, whose sly prim ways were most unlike his own. 
    The contrast did him no harm with the public, to whom the younger man was a 
    Tom Jones and the elder a Blifil. Two vastly abler men, Francis Bacon and 
    Raleigh, less advantageously placed, but unhampered with any scruples, were 
    busily trying to profit by the all-pervading animosity of Cecil and Essex.
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Belonging, as Essex did by his connections, 
    to the inner circle who stood closest to Elizabeth, it was natural that she 
    should take an interest in him, and give him opportunities for turning his 
    showy qualities to account. In 1586 he was sent to the Low Countries as 
    general of cavalry under his step-father, Leicester. He distinguished 
    himself by his fiery valour in the expeditions to Spain, and as commander of 
    the English army in France, though he does not seem to have had any real 
    military talent. But Elizabeth's regard for him was soon shaken by his 
    presumptuous and unruly behaviour. When he fought a duel with Sir Charles 
    Blount because she had conferred some favour on the latter, she swore &amp;quot;by 
    God's death it were fitting some one should take him down and teach him 
    better manners, or there were no rule with him.&amp;quot; He displeased her by his 
    quarrels with Cecil and Effingham, and his discontented grumbling. She was 
    highly dissatisfied with his management of the Azores expedition in 1597. In 
    July 1598, at a meeting of the Council, she was provoked by his insolence to 
    strike him; and though after three months he obtained his pardon, he never 
    regained her favour. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It was at this time that Burghley died (4 
    August), in his seventy-eighth year. Elizabeth, though she could call him &amp;quot;a 
    froward old fool&amp;quot; about a trifling matter ( March 1596), could not but feel 
    that much was changed when she lost the able and faithful servant who had 
    worked with her for forty years. &amp;quot;She seemeth to take it very grievously, 
    shedding of tears and separating herself from all company.&amp;quot; Buckhurst was 
    the new Treasurer. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Essex had for some time cast his eyes on 
    Ireland as a field where glory and power might be won. There can be little 
    doubt that he was already speculating on the advantage that the possession 
    of an army might give him in any difficulty with his rivals or with the 
    Queen herself. Cecil perfidiously advocated his appointment to a post which 
    had been the grave of so many reputations. The Queen at length consented, 
    though reluctantly. Essex was a popular favourite. He had managed--it is not 
    very clear how--to win the confidence of both Puritans and Papists. The 
    general belief was that, for the first time since she had mounted the 
    throne, Elizabeth was afraid of one of her subjects. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;During the whole of the reign Ireland had 
    been a cause of trouble and anxiety. Elizabeth's treatment of that unhappy 
    country was not more creditable or successful than that of other English 
    statesmen before and after her. There was the same absence of any systematic 
    policy steadily carried out, the same wearisome and disreputable alternation 
    between bursts of savage repression and intervals of pusillanimity, 
    concession, and neglect. In the competition of the various departments of 
    the public service for attention and expenditure, Ireland generally came 
    last. All other needs had to be served first whether at home or abroad.
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the early years of the reign the chief 
    trouble lay in Ulster, then the most purely Celtic part of Ireland, and 
    practically retouched by English conquest. Twice, in her weariness of the 
    struggle with Shan O'Neill, Elizabeth conceded to him something like a 
    subkingship of Ulster in return for his nominal submission. In the end he 
    was beaten, and his head was fixed on the walls of Dublin Castle (1566). But 
    nothing further was done to anglicise Ulster. During the attempt of the 
    Devonshire adventurers to colonise South Munster (1569-71), and the 
    consequent rebellion, the northern province remained an unconcerned 
    spectator. Nor did it join in the great Desmond rising (1579-83), which, 
    with the insurrection of the Catholic lords of the Pale and the landing of 
    the Pope's Italians at Smerwick, was the Irish branch of the threefold 
    attack on Elizabeth directed by Gregory XIII. The attempt of the elder Essex 
    to colonise Antrim (1573-75) was a disastrous failure, and Ulster still 
    remained practically independent of the Dublin Government. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The most successful Deputy of the reign was 
    Perrot (1584-87), a valiant soldier and strict ruler, who, after long 
    experience in the Irish wars, had come to the conclusion that what Ireland 
    most wanted was justice. The native chiefs, released from the constant dread 
    of spoliation, and finding that English encroachment was repressed as 
    inflexibly as Irish disorder, became quiet and friendly. But this system did 
    not suit the dominant race. The Deputy was accused to the Queen of seeking 
    to betray the country to the Irish and the Spaniard. Recalled, and put upon 
    his trial for treason, he was found guilty on suborned evidence, and 
    sentenced to death. It is usually said that his real offence was some 
    disrespectful language about the Queen, which he confessed. But it seems 
    that she forbore to take his life precisely because she would not have it 
    thought that she was influenced by personal resentment. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;His successor, Fitzwilliam, was a Deputy of 
    the old sort--greedy, violent, careless of consequences, and always acting 
    on the principle that, as against an Englishman, a Celt had no rights. The 
    execution of MacMahon in Monaghan, and the confiscation of his lands on a 
    trivial pretext, alarmed the North. Ulster had not been bled white like the 
    rest of Ireland. The O'Neills had a nephew of their old hero Shan for their 
    chief, who had been brought up at the English Court and made Earl of Tyrone 
    by Elizabeth. An educated and remarkably able man, he had none of his 
    uncle's illusions. He clung to his ancestral rights and dignity, but he 
    hoped to preserve them by zealously discharging his obligations as a vassal 
    of the Queen. He served in the war against Desmond, and exerted himself to 
    maintain order in Ulster. But he had no mind to sink into the position of a 
    mere dignified land-owner like the English nobles; nor indeed, under such a 
    Deputy as Fitzwilliam, was he likely to preserve even his lands if he lost 
    his power. Rather than that, he determined to enter into what he knew was a 
    most unequal struggle, on the off-chance of pulling through by help from 
    Spain. It is clear that he was driven into rebellion against his 
    inclination. But when he had once drawn the sword he maintained the struggle 
    against one Deputy after another with wonderful tenacity and resource. For 
    the first time in Irish history, the rebel forces were disciplined and armed 
    like those of the crown, and stood up to them in equal numbers on equal 
    terms. At length, in August 1598, Tyrone inflicted upon Sir Henry Bagnall 
    near Armagh the severest defeat that the English had ever suffered in 
    Ireland; slaying 1500 of his men, and capturing all his artillery and 
    baggage. Insurrections at once broke out all over Ireland. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This was the situation with which Essex 
    undertook to deal. He had loudly blamed other Deputies for not vigorously 
    attacking Tyrone in his own country. Vigour was the one military quality 
    which he himself possessed. He went with the title of Lieutenant and 
    Governor-General, and with extraordinary powers, at the head of 21,000 
    men--such an army as had never been sent to Ireland (April 1599). The Queen, 
    who trembled at the expense, and did not wish to see any of her nobles, 
    least of all Essex, permanently established in a great military command, 
    enjoined him to push at once into Ulster, as he had himself proposed, and 
    finish the war. Instead of doing this, he went south into districts that had 
    been depopulated and desolated by the savage warfare of the last thirty 
    years. Even here he met with discreditable reverses. When he got back to 
    Dublin (July) his army was reduced by disease and desertion to less than 
    5000 men. Disregarding the Queen's express prohibition, he made his friend 
    Southampton General of horse. When she censured his bad management, he 
    replied with impertinent complaints about the favour she was showing to 
    Cecil, Raleigh, and Cobham, and began to consult with his friends about 
    carrying selected troops over to England to remove them. Rumours of his 
    intention to return reached the Queen. &amp;quot;We do charge you,&amp;quot; she wrote, &amp;quot;as 
    you tender our pleasure, that you adventure not to come out of that 
    kingdom.&amp;quot; He declared that he could not invade Ulster without 
    reinforcements. They were sent, and at length he marched into Louth 
    (September). There he was met by Tyrone, who, in an interview, completely 
    twisted him round his finger, and obtained a cessation of arms and the 
    promise of concessions amounting to what would now be called Home Rule. A 
    few days later, on receipt of an angry letter from the Queen forbidding him 
    to grant any terms without her permission, he deserted his post and hurried 
    to England. The first notice Elizabeth received of this astounding piece of 
    insubordination was his still more astounding incursion into her bedroom, 
    all muddy from his ride, before she was completely dressed (28 September 
    1599). &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Elizabeth seems to have been so much taken 
    aback by the Earl's unparalleled presumption, that she did not blaze out as 
    might have been expected. She gave him audience an hour or two later, and 
    heard what he had to say. Probably he adopted an injured tone as usual, and 
    inveighed against &amp;quot;that knave Raleigh&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;that sycophant Cobham.&amp;quot; But his 
    insubordination had been gross, and no talking could make it anything else. 
    It was more dangerous than Leicester's disobedience in 1586, because it came 
    from a vastly more dangerous person. The same afternoon the Queen referred 
    the matter to the Council. Essex was put under arrest, and never saw her 
    again. The more she reflected, the more indignant and alarmed she became. 
    &amp;quot;By God's son,&amp;quot; she said to Harington, &amp;quot;I am no Queen; this man is above 
    me.&amp;quot; After a delay of nine months, occasioned by his illness, the fallen 
    favourite was brought before a special Commission on the charge of contempt 
    and disobedience, and sentenced to be suspended from his offices and 
    confined to his house during the Queen's pleasure (June 1600). In a few 
    weeks he was released from arrest, but he could not obtain permission to 
    appear at court, though he implored it in most abject letters. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;There are persons who consider themselves to 
    be intolerably wronged and persecuted if they cannot have precedence and 
    power over their fellow-citizens. Essex was such a person. Instead of being 
    thankful that he had escaped the punishment which under most sovereigns he 
    would have suffered, he entered into criminal plots for coercing, if not 
    overthrowing, the Queen. He urged the Scotch King to enforce the recognition 
    of his title by arms. He tried to persuade Mountjoy, his successor in 
    Ireland, to carry his army to Scotland to co-operate with James. These 
    intrigues were not known to the Government. But it did not escape 
    observation that he was collecting men of the sword in the neighbourhood of 
    his house; that he was holding consultations with suspected nobles and 
    gentlemen (some of whom were afterwards engaged in the Gunpowder Plot); that 
    the Puritan clergy were preaching and praying for his cause; and that there 
    was a certain ferment in the city. Essex was therefore summoned to attend 
    before the Council. Instead of obeying, he flew to arms, with Lords 
    Southampton, Rutland, Sandys, Cromwell, and Monteagle, and about 300 
    gentlemen. But the citizens of London did not respond to his appeal, and the 
    insurrection was easily suppressed, less than a dozen persons being slain on 
    both sides (8 February 1601). A more senseless and profligate attempt to 
    overthrow a good government it would be difficult to find in history. It was 
    not dignified by any semblance of principle, and it would sufficiently stamp 
    the character of its author, even if it stood alone as an evidence of his 
    vanity, egotism, and want of common sense. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The trial and execution of the principal 
    malefactor followed as a matter of course and without delay (February 25). 
    It would have been scandalous to spare him. Elizabeth had once been fond of 
    him, and had no reason to be ashamed of it. To talk of her &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot; and her 
    &amp;quot;amorous inclination,&amp;quot; as Hume and others have done, is revolting and 
    malignant nonsense. It is creditable to old age when it can take pleasure in 
    the unfolding of bright and promising youth. But royal favour was not good 
    for such a man as Essex. It developed the worst features in his showy but 
    faulty character. As he steadily deteriorated, her regard cooled; but so 
    much of it remained that she tried to amend him by chastisement, &amp;quot;ad 
    correctionem,&amp;quot; as she said, &amp;quot;non ad ruinam.&amp;quot; She had long before warned him 
    that, though she had put up with much disrespect to her person, he must not 
    touch her sceptre, or he would be dealt with according to the law of 
    England. She was as good as her word, and, though the memory of it was 
    painful to her, there is not the smallest evidence that she ever repented of 
    having allowed the law to take its course. Only three of the accomplices of 
    Essex were punished capitally. The five peers, none of them powerful or 
    formidable, experienced Elizabeth's accustomed clemency. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It has been suggested by an admirer of Essex 
    that he failed in Ireland because his &amp;quot;sensitively attuned nature&amp;quot; shrank 
    from the systematic desolation and starvation afterwards employed by his 
    successor. No evidence is offered for this suggestion. In a letter to the 
    Queen (25 June 1599) he advocates &amp;quot;burning and spoiling the country &lt;i&gt;in 
    all places&lt;/i&gt;,&amp;quot; which method &amp;quot;shall starve the rebels in one year.&amp;quot; This 
    course Mountjoy carried out. With means far inferior to those of Essex, and 
    notwithstanding the landing of 3000 Spaniards at Kinsale (September 1601), 
    he was the first Englishman who completely subdued Ireland. Tyrone 
    surrendered a few days before the Queen's death. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Little has been said in these pages about 
    parliamentary proceedings. The real history of the reign does not lie there. 
    The country was governed wholly by the Queen, with the advice of her 
    Council, and not at all by Parliament. In the forty-five years of her reign 
    there were only thirteen sessions of Parliament. The functions of Parliament 
    were to vote grants of money when the ordinary revenues of the crown were 
    insufficient, and to make laws. Its right in these matters was unquestioned. 
    If the Queen had never wanted subsidies or penal laws against her political 
    and religious opponents (of other laws she often said there were more than 
    enough already), it would never have been summoned at all; nor is there any 
    reason to suppose that the country would have complained as long as it was 
    governed with prudence and success. In fact, to do without Parliaments was 
    distinctly popular, because it meant doing without subsidies. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;In the thirty years preceding the Armada--the 
    sessions of Parliament being nine--Elizabeth applied for only eight 
    subsidies, and of one of them a portion was remitted. By her economy she not 
    only defrayed the expenses of government out of the ordinary revenue, which, 
    at the end of the reign was about £300,000 a year, but paid off old debts. 
    It was not till the twenty-fourth year of her reign that she discharged the 
    last of her father's debts, up to which time she had been paying interest on 
    it. Subsequently she even accumulated a small reserve, which, as she told 
    Parliament, was a most necessary thing if she was not to be driven to borrow 
    on sudden emergency. But this reserve vanished immediately she became 
    involved in the great war with Spain; and during the last fifteen years of 
    her life, although she received twelve subsidies, she was always in 
    difficulty for money. She had to sell crown lands to the value of £372,000. 
    Parliament, which had voted the usual single subsidies without complaint, 
    grumbled and pretended poverty when she asked for three and even four. 
    Bacon's famous outburst (1593) about gentlemen having to sell their plate 
    and farmers their brass pots to pay the tax, was a piece of claptrap. The 
    nation was, relatively to former times, rolling in wealth. But the old 
    belief had still considerable strength--that government being the affair of 
    the King, not of his subjects, he should provide for its expenses out of his 
    hereditary income, just as they paid their private expenses out of their 
    private incomes; that he had no more claim to dip into their pockets than 
    they had to dip into his; and that a subsidy, as its name imports, was an 
    occasional and extraordinary assistance furnished as a matter not of duty 
    but of good-will. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This might have been healthy doctrine when 
    kings were campaigning on the Continent for personal or dynastic objects. It 
    was out of place when a large expenditure was indispensable for the 
    interests and safety of the country. The grumbling, therefore, about 
    taxation towards the end of the reign was unreasonable and discreditable to 
    the grumblers. The Queen met them with her usual good sense. She explained 
    to them--though, as she correctly said, she was under no constitutional 
    obligation to do so--how the money went, what she had spent on the Spanish 
    war, on Ireland, and in loans to the Dutch and the French King. The plea was 
    unanswerable. Her private expenditure was on a very modest scale. In 
    particular she had never indulged in that besetting and costly sin of 
    princes, palace-building; and this at a time when the noble mansions which 
    still testify to the wealth of the England of that day were rising in every 
    county. Her only extravagance was dress. Some have carped at her collection 
    of jewelry. But jewels, like the silver balustrades of Frederick William I., 
    were a mode of hoarding, and in her later years she reconverted jewels into 
    money to meet the expenses of the State. Modern writers, who so airily blame 
    her for not subsidising more liberally her Scotch, Dutch, and French allies, 
    would find it difficult, if they condescended to particulars, to explain how 
    she was able to give them as much money as she did. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;It is common to make much of the debate on 
    monopolies in the last Parliament of Elizabeth (1601), as showing the rise 
    of a spirit of resistance to the royal prerogative. I do not think that the 
    report of that debate would convey such an impression to any one reading it 
    without preconceived views. None of the speakers contested the prerogative. 
    They only complained that it was being exercised in a way prejudicial to the 
    public interest. If the monopolies had been unimportant, or if the patentees 
    had used their privilege less greedily, there would evidently have been no 
    complaint as to the principle involved. No course of action was decided on, 
    because the Queen intervened by a message in which she stated that she had 
    not been aware of the abuses prevailing, that she was as indignant at them 
    as Parliament could be, and that she would put a stop, not to monopolies, 
    but to such as were injurious. With this message the House of Commons was 
    more than satisfied. As a matter of fact monopolies went on till dealt with 
    by the declaratory statute in the twenty-first year of James I. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;If the last Tudor handed down the English 
    Constitution to the first Stuart as she had received it from her 
    predecessors, unchanged either in theory or practice, it was far otherwise 
    with the English Church. There are two conflicting views as to the 
    historical position of the Church in this country. According to one it was, 
    all through the Middle Age, National as well as Catholic. The changes which 
    took place at the Reformation made no difference in that respect, and 
    involved no break in its continuity. It is not a Protestant Church. It is 
    still National and still Catholic, resting on precisely the same 
    foundations, and existing by the same title as it did in the days of Dunstan 
    and Becket. According to the other view, the epithets National and Catholic 
    are contradictory. A Church which undergoes radical changes of government, 
    worship, and doctrine is no longer the same Church but a new one, and must 
    be held to have been established by the authority which prescribed these 
    changes, which, in this case, was the Queen and Parliament. The word 
    &amp;quot;Protestant&amp;quot; was avoided in its formularies to make conformity easier for 
    Catholics; but it is a Protestant Church all the same. Whichever of these 
    views is nearer to the truth, it cannot be denied that, by the legislation 
    of Elizabeth the English Church became--what it was not in the Middle Age--a 
    spiritual organisation entirely dependent on the State. This it remains 
    still; the supremacy having been virtually transferred from the crown to 
    Parliament in the next century. I shall not venture to inquire how far this 
    condition of dependence has affected its ability and inclination to perform 
    the part of a true spiritual power. It is enough to say that no act of will 
    on the part of any English statesman has had such important and lasting 
    consequences, for good or for evil, as the decision of Elizabeth to make the 
    Church of England what it is. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;We have seen that the government and worship 
    of the Church were established by &lt;i&gt;Act of Parliament in 1559&lt;/i&gt;, and its 
    doctrines in 1571. But when once Elizabeth had placed her ecclesiastical 
    powers beyond dispute, by obtaining statutory sanction for them, she allowed 
    no further interference by Parliament. All its attempts, even at mere 
    discussion of ecclesiastical matters, she peremptorily suppressed. She 
    supplied any further legislation that was needed by virtue of her supremacy, 
    and she exercised her ecclesiastical government by the Court of High 
    Commission. The new Anglican model was acquiesced in by the majority of the 
    nation. But it had, at first, no hearty support except from the Government. 
    The earnest religionists were either Catholics or Puritans. The object of 
    Elizabeth was to compel these two extreme parties to outward conformity of 
    worship. What their real beliefs were she did not care. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The large majority of the Catholics showed a 
    loyal and patriotic spirit at the time of the Armada. But they were not 
    treated with confidence by the Government. Great numbers of them were 
    imprisoned or confined in the houses of Protestant gentlemen, by way of 
    precaution, when the Armada was approaching. No Catholic, I believe, was 
    intrusted with any command either by land or sea; and after the danger was 
    over, the persecution, in all its forms, became sharper than ever. There was 
    the less reason for this, inasmuch as it was no secret that the secular 
    priests and the great majority of the English Catholics had become bitterly 
    hostile to the small Jesuitical faction whose treasonable conspiracies had 
    brought so much trouble on their loyal co-religionists. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The term &amp;quot;Puritan&amp;quot; is used loosely, though 
    conveniently, to designate several shades of belief, By far the larger 
    number of those to whom it is applied were, and meant to remain, members of 
    the Established Church. They objected to certain ceremonies and vestments. 
    They hoped to procure the abolition of these, and, in the meantime, evaded 
    them when they could. They were what would now be called the Evangelical or 
    Low Church party. They held Calvin's distinctive doctrines on 
    predestination, as indeed did most of the bishops; but though preferring his 
    Presbyterian organisation, or something like it, they did not treat it as 
    essential. They were broadly distinguished from the Brownists or 
    Independents, then an insignificant minority, who held each congregation to 
    be a church, and therefore protested against the establishment of any 
    national church. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Though Elizabeth persecuted the Catholics 
    with a severity steadily increasing in proportion as they became less 
    numerous and formidable, she remained to the last anxious to make conformity 
    easy for them. This was her reason for so obstinately refusing the 
    concessions in the matter of ritual and vestments-trifling as they appear to 
    the modern mind--which would have satisfied almost the whole of the Puritan 
    party. This policy (for policy it assuredly was rather than conviction), 
    which drove the most earnest Protestants into an attitude of opposition 
    destined in the next two reigns to have such serious consequences, has been 
    severely censured. But there can be no question that it did answer the 
    purpose she had in view, which for the moment was most important. It did 
    induce great numbers of Catholics to conform. She avoided a civil war in her 
    own time between Catholics and Anglicans at the price of a civil war later 
    on between Anglicans and Puritans. Looking at the great drama as a whole, 
    perhaps the Puritans of the Great Rebellion might congratulate themselves on 
    the part that Elizabeth chose to play in its earlier acts. It cannot be 
    doubted that a civil war in the sixteenth century between Catholics and 
    Protestants would have been waged with far more ferocity than was displayed 
    by either Cavaliers or Roundheads, and would have been attended with the 
    horrors of foreign invasion. To conciliate the earnest religionists on both 
    sides was impossible. Elizabeth chose the &lt;i&gt;via media&lt;/i&gt;, and the 
    successful equilibrium which she maintained during nearly half a century 
    proves that she hit upon what in her own day was the true centre of gravity.
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;But while doing justice to Elizabeth's 
    insight and prudence, we may not excuse her extreme severity to the 
    nonconformists of either party. It was not necessary. It seems to have been 
    even impolitic. It arose from her arbitrary temper--from a quality, that is 
    to say, valuable in a ruler, but apt, in great rulers, to be somewhat in 
    excess. I have condemned her persecution of the Catholics. Her persecution 
    of the Protestant nonconformists was marked by even greater injustice. 
    Against the Catholics it might at least be urged that their opinions 
    logically led to disloyalty. But the Independents, Barrow, Greenwood, and 
    Penry, were indisputably loyal men. They were put to death nominally for 
    spreading writings which, contrary to common sense, were held to be 
    seditious, but really for their religious opinions, which, in the case of 
    the first two, were extracted from them by the interrogatories of Archbishop 
    Whitgift, an Inquisitor as strenuous and merciless as Torquemada. Some of 
    the Council, especially Burghley and Knollys, were strongly opposed to 
    Whitgift's proceedings. It must therefore be assumed that he had the Queen's 
    personal approval. She had committed herself to a struggle with intrepid and 
    obstinate men. The crowded gaols were a visible demonstration that she could 
    not compel them to submit; and to hang them all was out of the question. An 
    Act was therefore passed in 1593, by which those who would not promise to 
    attend church were to be banished the country. Thus most of the Independents 
    were at last got rid of. The non-separatist Puritans, who aimed at less 
    radical changes, and hoped to effect them, if not under their present 
    sovereign, yet under her successor, kept on the windy side of the law, 
    attending church once a month, and not entering till the service was nearly 
    over. Thus, at the end of her reign, Elizabeth perhaps flattered herself 
    that she was within measurable distance of religious uniformity. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;hr&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font style=&quot;font-family: Times New Roman&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;From &lt;i&gt;
    Queen Elizabeth&lt;/i&gt; by Edward Spencer Beesly.&amp;nbsp; Published in London by 
    Macmillan and Co., 1892.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;
  &lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
    &lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fbeeslychaptertwelve.html&quot;&gt;to Chapter 
    XII: Last Years and Death: 1601-1603&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
    &lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fmonarchs%2feliz1.html&quot;&gt;to the Queen 
    Elizabeth I website&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp; /&amp;nbsp;
    &lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2frelative%2fmaryqos.html&quot;&gt;to the Mary, 
    queen of Scots website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fsecondary.html&quot;&gt;
    to Secondary Sources&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
  


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