terbury, neither countenanced these furious measures, nor approved the intention of the queen to engage England in the war which was kindled between France and Spain. But Philip, to enforce his demand, came to London, and declared to Mary, if he was not gratified in this request, he would never more set foot in England. Yet it was not without employing 1557. both menaces and artifices that Mary prevailed, and that the council consented to a declaration of war.

A. D.

The revenue of England at that time little exceeded three hundred thousand pounds, and to support the war, the queen had recourse to the most arbitrary methods. She obliged the city of London to supply her with sixty thousand pounds on her husband's entry; she levied before the legal time the second year's subsidy voted by parliament; she issued anew many privy seals, by which she procured loans from her people; and having equipped a fleet, which she could not victual by reason of the dearness of provisions, she seized all the corn she could find in Suffolk and Norfolk, without making any compensation to the owners. By all these infamous expedients, assisted by the power of pressing, she levied an army of ten thousand men, which she sent over to the Low-Countries, under the command of the earl of Pembroke. Meanwhile, in order to prevent any disturbance at home, many of the most considerable gentry were thrown into the Tower; and lest they should be known, they either were carried thither in the night time, or were hoodwinked and muffled by the guards who conducted them.

After this junction of the English, the king

of Spain's army amounted to above sixty thousand men; and the duke of Savoy, who commanded it, suddenly invested St. Quintin. The constable Montmorency, who had advanced imprudently to its relief, was totally defeated and made prisoner by the besiegers. The whole kingdom of France was thrown into consternation ;. but the cautious delays of Philip allowed the French to recover their spirits; and he reaped few fruits from this decisive victory.

The English had soon sufficient reason A. D. to repent of having entered into the war. 1558. The town of Calais, the only possession they retained in France, being unexpectedly invested and attacked by the duke of Guise, after a siege of eight days, was obliged to capitulate; though it had held out against Edward III. for eleven months, at the head of a nume rous army, which had that very year been victorious in the battle of Cressy.

But it was not only the loss of Calais that embarrassed the English. The Scots, excited by the French, began to infest the borders. The enterprises of the Scots proceeded little farther; yet in order to connect Scotland more closely with France, and to increase the influence of the latter kingdom, it was thought proper by Henry to celebrate the marriage between the young queen and the dauphin; and a deputation was sent by the Scottish parliament to assist at the ceremony, and to settle the terms of the con

tract.

This close alliance between France and Scotland threatened very nearly the repose and security of England; and it was foreseen, that though the factions and disorders which might

naturally be expected in the Scottish government, during the absence of the sovereign, would make its power less formidable, that kingdom would at least afford to the French a means of invading England. The queen, therefore, found it necessary to summon a parliament, and to demand of them some supplies to recruit her exhausted exchequer. Sensible of the emergency, the commons, without making any reflections on the past exactions and extortions, voted, besides a fifteenth, a subsidy of four shillings in the pound on land, and two shillings and eight pence on goods. The parliament also passed an act confirming all the sales and grants of crown lands, which either were already made by the queen, or should be made during the seven ensuing years.

During this whole reign, the nation were under great apprehensions with regard not only to the succession, but the life of the lady Elizabeth. It required all the prudence of that princess to elude the effects of the violent jealousy, which the queen entertained against her. When questioned respecting the real presence, the net for catching the protestants, she replied:

Christ was the word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what the word did make it,
That I believe and take it.

The money granted by parliament enabled the queen to fit out a fleet of a hundred and forty sail, for the assistance of Spain; and the principal armies approaching each other on the frontiers of Picardy, each headed by their respective king, a general expectation was excited of some important event. But neither Philip

nor Henry were willing to stake their pretensions on the success of a battle. Negociations for peace were therefore entered into, and the armies retired into winter quarters, till the princes could come to some agreement. Among other conditions, Henry demanded the restitution of Navarre to its lawful owner; and Philip, that of Calais and its territory to England; but in the midst of these negociations, news arrived of Mary's death. The loss of Calais, and the absence of her husband, had pressed on her declining health, and had brought 1558. on a lingering fever of which she died, after a short and inglorious reign of five years and a few months.

A. D.

Few qualities, either estimable or amiable, attach to the character of Mary; and her person was as little engaging as her behaviour and address. Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, malignity, and revenge, the fruits of a bad temper, and a narrow understanding, are with justice ascribed to her; and this odious catalogue of vices is only broken by the single virtue of sincerity.

Under her reign, the naval power of England, which is now its glory and its defence, was so inconsiderable, that fourteen thousand pounds being ordered to be applied to the repairing and victualling of the fleet, it was computed that ten thousand pounds a year, afterwards, would answer all necessary charges.

A notion of the little progress made in refinement about this time, may be formed from the subsequent circumstances. Erasmus, describing the slovenly habits of the people of England,

says, "the floors are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, excrements of dogs and cats, and every thing that is nasty." And according to Hollingshed there was scarcely a chimney to the houses, even in the most considerable towns. The fire was kindled by the wall, and the smoke sought its way out of the roof, or door, or windows. The houses were nothing but watling plaistered over with clay; the people slept on straw pallets, and had a good round log under their head for a pillow, while the furniture and utensils were generally of wood.

THE

CHAP. XII.

The Reign of Elizabeth.

HE prudence which Elizabeth had displayed during the reign of her sanguinary and bigotted sister, rendered her accession the A. D. subject of general joy and congratu1558. lation; and the magnanimity she showed

in burying past offences in oblivion confirmed the favourable opinion which her subjects had entertained of her. When the bishops, however, came to make obeisance to her, she turned away from Bonner as from a man polluted with blood; and this sufficiently declared the religious principles which she meant to adopt.