blaze of fireworks, with the Armada. The concentrated interest of
the reign lies in the period now under my hands. It is all action,
and I shall use my materials badly if I cannot make it as
interesting as a novel."

Nothing was neglected by Froude which could throw light upon the
splendid and illustrious Queen who raised England from the depths of
degradation to the height of renown. It was at the zenith of
Elizabeth's career that Froude stopped. His original intention had
been to continue till her death. But the ample scale on which he had
planned his book was so much enlarged by his copious quotations from
the manuscripts at Simancas that by the time he reached his eleventh
volume he substituted for the death of Elizabeth on his title-page
the defeat of the Armada. With the year 1588, then, he closed his
labours. Even the perverse critics who had assumed to treat the
History of Henry VIII. as an anti-ecclesiastical pamphlet were
compelled to show more respect for volumes which gave so much novel
information to the world. Moreover Henry's daughter was a very
different person from her father. Scandal about Queen Elizabeth had
been chiefly confined to Roman Catholics, and few Englishmen had
forgotten who made England the mistress of the seas. The old
religion had a strong fascination for her, and every one knows how
she interrupted Dean Nowell when he preached against images. She
declined to be the head of the Church in the sense arrogated by
Henry, and yet she would by no means admit the supremacy of the
Pope. If she ever felt any inclination towards Rome, the massacre of
St. Bartholomew checked it for ever. Gregory XIII. and Catherine de Medici
were rulers to her taste. On the other hand she resisted the persecuting
tendencies of her Bishops, and spared the life even of such a wretch as
Bonner. It is possible that she believed in transubstantiation. It