was lost. Mary died amid crushing disappointments public and personal,
after reigning five years (1553-1558).




CHAPTER VII.


[Sidenote: Elizabeth, 1558-1603.]

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry and a disgraced and decapitated Queen,
wore the crown of England. If heredity had been as much talked of then
as now, England might have feared the child of a faithless wife, and a
remorseless, bloodthirsty King. But while Mary, daughter of Katharine,
the most pious and best of mothers, had left only a great blood-spot
upon the page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be the most wise,
prosperous and great, the Kingdom had ever known. In her complex
character there was the imperiousness, audacity and unscrupulousness of
her father, the voluptuous pleasure-loving nature of her mother, and
mingled with both, qualities which came from neither. She was a tyrant,
held in check by a singular caution, with an instinctive perception of
the presence of danger, to which her purposes always instantly bent.

The authority vested in her was as absolute as her father's, but while
her imperious temper sacrificed individuals without mercy, she ardently
desired the welfare of her Kingdom, which she ruled with extraordinary
moderation and a political sagacity almost without parallel, softening,
but not abandoning, one of her father's usurpations.