his brother, the cardinal, was assassinated in a like barbarous manner; and the Protestants were only prevented from making public rejoicings at their fall by the better sense and feeling

above all men. L'Aubespine remarked that she had all along given assistance to the enemies and revolted subjects of France. Here she drew a nice distinction, saying that she had done nothing against Henry, but had only assisted the King of Navarre against the Duke of Guise. But the civil war continued to rage in France, and Henry III. was soon glad to have her countenance to the murder of the Guises. If that unhappy family were bigots and persecutors and chief directors of the massacre of St. Bartholonew, they certainly found no faith or mercy themselves. In December, 1588, Henry III. secretly distributed forty-five daggers to as many assassins in the castle of Blois: the Duke of Guise, Queen Mary's cousin, who had been invited as a guest, was set upon and murdered at

of discussion suited his tastes; he concealed him in his palace of Holyrood, under the title of Falconer. In 1590, James marries a Princess of Norway. She was a Lutheran; Abercromby converted her to Catholicism. Three years afterwards, the king commissioned Father Gordon to go to Rome, to treat with the Holy See about the re-establishment of the faith in his states. Gordon had removed all obstacles; but Elizabeth, who kept that prince in tutelage, as the presumptive heir to her crown, threw herself in the way of a reconciliation, equally opposed to her interests and her prejudices. She points as at the bottom of this purely Scotch Catholic movement, the hand of Philip II., stirring up troubles, and agitating men's minds with the view of making himself master more surely of England and Scotland. The Invincible Armada had been dispersed by storms; it is no longer on a fleet that the gloomy adversary of Protestantism now reckons; it is on the Catholics of the interior. Religious convulsions, intestine discords were daily beginning to be felt; these disquiet this poor king, who turned pale at the sight of a naked sword, and could not even hold his sceptre with a firm grasp. Elizabeth, in order to re-assure him, sent him the next year some English troops. These were beaten by the Catholics. All that remained was to attribute this reverse to causes independent of Scottish valour. The Jesuit Gordon was accused of having made fanatics of the Papists. This was with a single lie to strike two blows at once, that were felt simultaneously in England and in Scotland. The queen had been right in her calculations; Father Gordon was banished from the kingdom. This expulsion coloured the defeat of the English. It offered a new pretext for harassing the Catholics. Elizabeth availed herself of it, both for her kingdom and for Ireland."-Histoire Religieuse, Politique et Litteraire de la Compagnie de Jesus, tom. ii. p. 309.

1 Such were the fruits of THE LEAGUE, so well known in the annals of France, and which itself was the fruit of that of Bayonne in 1565. "The singularity of the League," says Anquetil, "first appears in the almost universal insurrection of

COURT OF THE CASTLE OF BLOIS. From France Monumentale et Pittoresque.

of their great leader, Du Plessis Mornay. The Catholics became more fierce and formidable than ever, the pope launched the sentence of excommunication, the doctors of the Sorbonne released the subjects from their oath of allegiance, and a few months after, as Henry was laying siege to his own capital, he was assassinated by a fanatic monk named Jacques Clement.'

the Catholics against a king, most Catholic himself, and always owned to be such, notwithstanding the means employed to bring suspicion on his faith; next, in the bold pretensions of that audacious League, even in the feebleness of its beginnings; in its ever firm and steady progress, in spite of the knowledge people had of its secrets, and the measures taken to check it; in the object it proposed, which was to place on the throne a foreigner without even the colour of a title; in the frightful successes of that League, punished indeed in its chief, but so well concerted, that new monsters sprang from the blood then shed; in the fanaticism which poignards kings, the anarchy that desolates empires, the tyranny of the people, brutal and insolent, and more intolerable than that of the great; in fine, in all those plagues which God in his wrath sends forth among men, plagues which desolated France until the moment when the Almighty, pitying our calamities, gave success to the efforts of Henry (IV.), at once the conqueror and the pacificator of France."-Esprit de la Ligue, livre v.

Yet the League, associated as it is with a thousand horrors, finds eulogists in the nineteenth century! The historian Mezeray having proclaimed to the world that "zealous Catholics were its instruments; and the new Religieux (the Jesuits) its applauders and trumpets," the credit of both is involved in its good fame; and, accordingly, in Cretineau Joly's History of the Jesuits, one is astounded to find the seventh chapter begin with these words:-"The principle of the League was salutary and just." And then follows an elaborate defence, which it were well that all Protestants studied; and which throws a flood of redeeming light on all that was severe and coercive in the policy of Elizabeth and her counsellors in England, and of Moray and his successors in Scotland; seeing that it deliberately argues that even the horrors of the League were preferable to the toleration of the Christianity of the Reformers.-See Histoire Religieuse, Politique et Litteraire de la Compagnie de Jesus-composée sur les documents inédits et authentiques. Paris, 1845. This work is in five 8vo volumes, illustrated with portraits and facsimiles.

King Philip of Spain, who was exasperated to the extreme by the bold and brilliant expeditions of Drake and others to the West Indies, was in a different position from that of the French and Scottish kings; and making the most of the recent tragedy at Fotheringay Castle, he branded Elizabeth as a murderess, and animated his people with a desire of vengeance. She on her side made some politic efforts to disarm his resentment. Leicester, who had returned to Holland, soon became an object of contempt. She recalled him, allowed the Hollanders to put Prince Maurice of Orange in his stead, and then seemed very well disposed to give up the Protestant cause in the Netherlands. She kept the precautionary towns, as they were called, and greatly did the Netherlanders fear that she would sell these keys of their dominions to the Spanish king. Burghley opened negotiations with Spain, and two foreign merchants, an Italian and a

Fleming, were intrusted with a secret mission to the Duke of Parma, who still maintained himself in the Netherlands. But Elizabeth and her ministers soon saw that no sacrifices they could make would disarm the animosity of the Spaniards, and every wind brought them news of immense naval and military preparations in Spain and Portugal.' While the queen continued to negotiate, Sir Francis Drake was despatched with a fleet of thirty sail, and ordered to destroy all the Spanish ships he could find in their own harbours. Never was a commission more ably or more boldly executed. On the 19th of April (1587) he dashed into Cadiz Roads, and burned, sunk, or took thirty ships. He then turned back along the coast, and between Cadiz Bay and Cape St. Vincent, he sunk, took, or burned 100 vessels, besides knocking down four castles on the coast. From Cape St. Vincent he sailed to the Tagus, where he challenged the Marquis de Santa Cruz,

SIR JOHN HAWKINS.-From the "Heroologia." and took, almost under the shadow of his flag, the St. Philip, a ship of the largest size. These operations materally tended to delay the sailing of the Spanish Armada for more than a year, and allowed Elizabeth time to prepare for her defence. But Philip, whose power on the whole had increased rather than diminished since the first commencement of his enmity with Elizabethfor if he had lost Holland, he had annexed Portugal to his dominions-was not to be put from his purpose of invading England. He obtained from the pope supplies of money and a renewal of the bull of excommunication against Elizabeth. He levied troops in all directions, he hired ships from the republic of Genoa and Venice, he took up all the proper vessels possessed by his subjects

SIR MARTIN FROBISHER.-From the " "Heroologia." of Naples and Sicily, he pressed the construction of others in Spain, in Portugal, and in that part of Flanders which still belonged to him, where shoals of flat-bottomed boats were prepared for the transport of the Duke of Parma and 30,000 men. Although it was resolved to encounter the invaders by sea, instead of waiting for their landing, yet, through parsimony, the whole royal navy of England did not, at this moment, exceed thirtysix sail; but merchant ships were fitted out by the nobles and people at their own expense, and armed for war, and Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, names scarcely eclipsed by all the heroes who have succeeded them-men who had lived their lives on the ocean, and girdled the globe in their daring

ardwicke State Papers.

expeditions-the best seamen of the age, were appointed to the command under the high admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham. The entire number of ships collected on this critical occasion was 191; the number of seamen was 17,400, the total amount of tonnage being 31,985.' The Dutch were applied to for their assistance, "and," says Stow, "they came roundly in with threescore sail, brave ships of war, fierce, and full of spleen." The fleet was distributed at various points, for it could not be known where the enemy would attempt their landing. The lord-admiral, who guarded the western coast, divided his force into three squadrons. Drake was detached towards Ushant to keep a look-out; Hawkins cruised between the Land's End and Scilly Islands; Lord Henry Seymour cruised along the coast of Flanders, blocking up the Spanish ports there; and other captains constantly scoured the Channel.

As it was given out that the Spaniards intended to sail up the river and strike their first blow at London, both sides of the Thames were fortified, under the direction of Federico Giambelli, an Italian deserter from the Spanish service. Gravesend was strongly fortified, and a vast number of barges were collected there, for the double purpose of serving as a bridge for the passage of horse and foot between Kent and Essex, and for blocking up the river to the invaders. At Tilbury Fort, directly opposite to Gravesend, a great camp was formed. Nor was there less stir and activity inland. There was not a corner of England which did not ring with preparation, and mus

Lord Howard of Effingham, was a Catholic, they served in the ranks like common soldiers, or they embarked in the ships to do the work of common sailors. When the lord-lieutenants of the different counties returned their numbers, it was found that there were under arms 130,000 men, exclusive of the levies furnished by the city of London. The force assembled at Tilbury Fort consisted of 22,000 foot and 2000 horse, and between them and London were 28,000 men levied for the protection of her majesty's person, commanded by her kinsman Lord Hunsdon, and 10,000 Londoners. A confident hope was entertained that the fleet would be able to prevent any disembarkation, but it was provided, in case of a landing, that the country should be laid waste, and the invaders harassed by incessant attacks. The queen never shone to more advantage than at this warlike crisis, and though she kept her person between the capital and the near camp at Tilbury Fort, the fame of her brave de

ter its armed force. The maritime counties, from Cornwall to Kent, and from Kent to Lincolnshire, were furnished with soldiers, both of themselves and with the auxiliary militia of the neighbouring shires, so that, upon any spot where a landing might be effected, within the space of forty-eight hours an army of 20,000 men could be assembled. The Catholics vied with the Protestants in activity, in zeal, in patriotism; and as their gentlemen of rank were generally excluded from command by the jealousies of the Protestants, although the lord-admiral himself, Southey's Naval History. In the Armada there were only three ships of size superior to the Triumph, the largest of the English ships; but there were forty-five ships ranging from 600 to 1000 tons; and though the English fleet outnumbered the

Armada, its entire tonnage was less than one-half of that of the enemy.

portment and her encouraging words were spread everywhere. She reviewed the Londoners, whose enthusiasm was boundless; and when the arrival of the Armada was daily expected, she reviewed the army at Tilbury Fort, riding a war-horse, wearing armour on her back, and carrying a marshal's truncheon in her hand. The Earls of Essex and Leicester held her bridle-rein, while she delivered a stirring speech to the men. "My loving people," said the queen, "we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal