The attention of the English was now called aside from dwelling on this disastrous event by the formidable preparations made by Philip II. of Spain for an invasion of the kingdom. The unsuccessful issue of all these preparations we have already recorded in treating of the reign of that monarch. Of the whole of the invincible armada there returned to Spain only fifty-three shattered ships; and the seamen as well as soldiers who remained, only served, by their accounts, to intimidate their countrymen from attempting to renew so dangerous an enterprise. The English, on the other hand, were incited to make some descents, in their turn, upon the Spanish coasts; and Elizabeth's navy, under the com mand of those great admirals, Raleigh, Howard, Drake, Cavendish, and Hawkins, began to establish that superiority at sea which Britain ever since has almost uninterruptedly maintained.

Among those who chiefly distinguished themselves in these Spanish expeditions, was the young earl of Essex, a nobleman of great courage, fond of glory, and of a most enterprising disposi tion. He possessed no less the talents of a warrior than of a finished courtier; yet his impetuosity was apt to exceed the bounds of prudence. He was haughty, and utterly impatient of advice or control. Elizabeth, then almost sixty years of age, was smitten with the personal charms of this accomplished youth; for it was peculiar to the queen, that though she had always rejected a husband, she was passionately fond of having a lover. The flattery of her courtiers had pursuaded her that, though wrinkled and even deformed, she was yet young and beautiful;* and she was not sensible of any disparity of choosing Essex for her partner in all the masks at court. Dudley, earl of Leicester, had died some time before. The death of Lord Burleigh, which happened soon after Essex came into favor, left him without a rival, not only in the queen's affections, but in the direction of her councils. The brilliant station which he now occupied, and still more the haughtiness of his temper, procured him many enemies; while the openness and unreservedness of his disposition gave these enemies every advantage. A rebellion had been for many years ferment

A curious proof how desirous Elizabeth was of the praise of beauty exists in a proclamation issued by her in 1563, in the thirty-third year of her age, and fifth of her reign, which sets forth, that, from the great desire which all ranks of people have shown to have portraits of her majesty, there have been a great number of pictures made "which do not sufficiently express the natural representation of her majesty's person, favor, or grace, but for the most part have erred therein;-And for that her majesty perceiveth that a great number of her loving subjects are much grieved, and take great offence with the errors and deformities already committed by sundry persons in this behalf;— Therefore she straitly charges all manner of persons to forbear from painting, graving, printing, or making any portrait of her majesty, or from showing or publishing such as are apparently deformed, until some perfect pattern or example shall be made by some coning person, which shall be approved by her," &c. &c. This proclamation is published in the Archaiologia of the London Society of Antiqua ries, vol. ii., p. 169, from the original draught in the handwriting of Secretary Cecil.

ing in Ireland, and the earl of Tyrone, who headed the malcontents, had committed infinite devastations to that country, and threatened with his party to shake off all dependence on the crown of England. Essex was deputed to quell these disorders; he was, however, unsuccessful, and procured nothing further than a cessation of hostilities. His enemies at court took occasion from this miscarriage to undermine him in the favor of the queen—a purpose to which he himself contributed by hastily throwing up his command, and returning without leave to England. He trusted, it is probable, to the empire he had obtained over the queen's affections, which was indeed so great, that in spite of the highest dissatisfaction at his conduct, he was soon as much in her good graces as ever. But this impetuous and incautious man lost himself at length irretrievably by some personal reflections which he unguardedly threw out against his royal mistress. It was told her that his affection was all grimace, and that he had frequently declared that he thought the queen as deformed in her mind as she was crooked in her body. She now considered Essex as entirely unworthy of her esteem, and permitted his enemies to drive him to those extremities to which the impetuosity of his own disposition continually prompted him. Among other wild projects, he had concerted with some of his friends to beset the palace, to take possession of the queen's person, and forcibly compel her to remove from her councils all who were disagreeable or obnoxious to him; a scheme which one can hardly suppose to have proceeded from a brain that was not distempered. It was the fortune of Elizabeth's government, that all the machinations of her enemies were frustrated by a timely discovery. The queen's favor would, perhaps, have been still extended to him, but for another attempt equally treasonable, and yet more extravagant in its nature. This was to raise the city of London; and at the head of the citizens, with whom he believed himself extremely popular, to attain an absolute authority in the kingdom, and the re.noval of all his enemies. But he was deceived in the notion of his own popularity-he was opposed by the citizens-and being attacked in the streets, was compelled to retreat for shelter into his own house. His case was now desperate; he maintained a siege in his house against the queen's troops, and was at length compelled to surrender himself at discretion. He was tried by his peers, found guilty, and condemned to death as a traitor. The queen, with real reluctance, signed the warrant for his execu tion; and he was privately beheaded in the Tower, in the thirtyfifth year of his age.

From the death of Essex, the queen, now in the seventieth year of her age, seemed to lose all enjoyment of life. She fell into profound melancholy; she reflected then with remorse on some past actions of her reign, and was at times under the most violent emotions of anguish and despa.r. Her constitution, enfeebled by

age, very soon fell a victim to her mental disquietude; and perceiving her end approaching, she declared that the succession to the crown of England should devolve to her inmediate heir, James VI. of Scotland. She died on the 24th of March, 1603, after a reign of forty-five years. There are few personages in history who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies and the adulation of friends than queen Elizabeth. It is probable that her character varied considerably in the different periods of her life; yet, upon the whole, it is not difficult to pronounce u uniform judgment with regard to the conduct of this illustrious princess. The vigor of her mind, her magnanimity, her penetra tion, vigilance, and address, certainly merited the highest praises. She was frugal without avarice, enterprising without temerity, and of an active temper; yet free from turbulency and vain ambition.

On the other hand, as a queen, she was rigid to her people, Imperious to her courtiers, insincere in her professions, and often a hypocrite in her public measures; as a woman, she was suspicious, jealous, and cruel. She was intemperate in her anger, insatiable in her desire of admiration, and, with all her excellent sense, continually the dupe of flattery.

Few sovereigns succeeded to the throne of England in more difficult circumstances, and none ever conducted the government with more uniform success and felicity; but, in fact, there never was a sovereign who carried the notions of prerogative higher than queen Elizabeth, or had so thorough a disregard for the people's liberties. Those engines of arbitrary power, which, in the hands of her successors, excited that indignant spirit of the people which ended at length in the destruction of the constitution, were employed by this politic queen without the smallest murmur on the part of her subjects. The tyranny of the courts of Star-chamber, and of High Commission, which we shall see the cause of those violent ferinents in the time of Charles I., was most patiently submitted to under Elizabeth. The tone of the queen to her parliaments was, "I discharge you from presuming to meddle with affairs of state, which are matters above your comprehension." So distant was the condition of the subject in those so much vaunted days of queen Elizabeth from that degree of liberty which we at present enjoy-a consideration, this, which ought to produce at least a respect for that improved constitution. which has secured to us that valuable blessing, a patriotic desire to preserve this constitution inviolate, and to maintain its equal balance, distant alike from the tyrannical encroachments of arbitrary power, and the insatiable claims of democratic faction,

CHAPTER XXIX.

GREAT BRITAIN in the Reigns of JAMES I. and CHARLES I.-Accession of James VI. of Scotland to the Throne of England-Change of popular Feeling on the Rights of the Subject-Gunpowder Plot-His unworthy Favorites-Pacific Reign-Death-Charles I.-Differences with his first ParliamentPetition of Rights-Religions Innovations attempted in England and Scotland augment the Discontents-The National Covenant-Proceedings of Charles's last Parliament-Impeachment and Execution of Strafford--Bill passed declaring Parliament perpetual-Catholic Rebellion in Ireland made a Pretext for the Parliament's levying an Army-Bench of Bishops impeached and impris oned-King impeaches five Members of the House of Commons-Civil WarSolemn League and Covenant-Scots cooperate with Parliament-CromwellBattle of Naseby-Cromwell turns the Army against the Parliament-Trial and Execution of Charies-Reflections.

UPON the death of Elizabeth, the crown of England passed with great tranquillity to her successor, James VI., king of Scotland, whose right united whatever descent, bequest, or parliamentary sanction could confer. If James mounted the throne with the entire approbation and even affection of his English subjects, it is certain that he did not long preserve them. He was unpopular from his manners, which were pedantic and austere, from his preference to his Scottish courtiers, and still more so from his high notions of an uncontrollable prerogative, which he was continually sounding in the ears of his subjects, both in his parliamentary speeches and in the works which he published,-a bad policy, which, giving occasion to men to examine into the ground of those pretensions, served only to expose their weakness. The vigor of Elizabeth's government scarce left room to s rutinize its foundation, but her sucessor was fond of such disputes, and was never so happy as when engaged in a learned argument upon the divine right of kings. About this period, the minds of men throughout all Europe seem to have undergone a very perceptible revolution. The study of letters began to be generally cultivated. Philosophy led to speculative reasonings on laws, on government, on religion, and on polities. In England, especially, which, in point of science, possessed a higher reputation at this period than any of the European kingdoms, these studies had a sensible influence on the current of public opinion. The love of liberty, which is inherent in all ingenuous nations, acquired new force, and began to furnish more extensive views of the rights of the subject than had prevailed in any former period of the constitu tion.

James, though of no mean capacity, was yet so blinded by self-conceit, and by the prejudices of education, that he failed to perceive this revolution, so dangerous to absolute or despotic power. His reign was, therefore, a silent but a continued struggle between the prerogative of the crown and the rights of the people. The seeds were sown of that spirit of resistance, which, though it did not break out in his time into acts of violence, proved afterwards fatal to his successor.

Domestic events were such as chiefly signalized the reign of James I. He was scarcely seated on the throne, when he became the object of at least an alleged conspiracy, in which lord Cobham, lord Grey, and Sir Walter Raleigh were associated. Cobham and Grey were pardoned. Raleigh underwent a trial, which, though the issue declared him guilty, leaves the mind in a state of absolute skepticism with regard to the reality of this conspiracy, or of his concern in it. Raleigh's sentence was suspended for the course of fifteen years, during most of which time he was confined in the Tower, where he employed himself in the composition of his History of the World, a work excellent in point of style, and in many branches valuable in point of matter. In the last year of his life he received the king's commission of admiral to undertake an expedition for the discovery of some rich mines in Guiana. This, which, if not law, humanity at least ought to have interpreted into a pardon of his offence, was however not so understood by the monarch, whose heart had no great portion of the generous feelings. Raleigh's expedition was unsuccessful; the court of Spain complained of an attack which he had made upon one of their settlements. James wished to be at peace with Spain, and Raleigh at his return was ordered to be beheaded on his former sentence.

In the second year of this reign was framed another plot of a more dangerous nature, and one of the most infernal that ever entered into the human breast to conceive-the Gunpowder Treason. The circumstances of this conspiracy, which had for Its object to cut off at one blow the king and the whole body of the parliament, are so generally known as to need no detail. It had originated from the disgust and disappointment of the catholics, who, on the accession of James, the son of a catholic, had formed to themselves illusive hopes of the establishment of their

"It appears," says Hume, "from the speeches and proclamations of James I., and the whole train of that prince's actions, as well as his son's, that he regarded the English government as a simple monarchy, and never imagined that any considerable part of his subjects entertained a contrary idea. This opinion made those monarchs discover their pretensions, without preparing any force to support them; and even without reserve or disguise, which are always employed by those who enter upon any new project, or endeavor to innovate in any government. The flattery of courtiers further confirmed their prejudices; and above all, that of the clergy, who, from several passages of Scripture, and these wrested too, had erected a regular and avowed system of arbitrary power. -Essay on the Protestant Succession.