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The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of England by Mary Platt Parmele
page 56 of 113 (49%)
gracefully retreated, declaring, with royal scorn for truth, that "she
had not before known of the existence of such an evil."

In fact, lying, in her independent code of morals, was a virtue, and
one to which she owed some of her most brilliant triumphs in diplomacy.
And when the bald, unmitigated lie was at last found out, she felt not
the slightest shame, but only amusement at the simplicity of those who
had believed she was speaking the truth.

[Sidenote: Massacre of St. Bartholomew's, 1572. East India Company
Chartered, 1606. Colonization of Virginia.]

Her natural instincts, her thrift, and her love of peace inclined her
to keep aloof from the struggle going on in Europe between Protestants
and Catholics. But while the news of St. Bartholomew's Eve seemed to
give her no thrill of horror, she still sent armies and money to aid
the Huguenots in France, and to stem the persecutions of Philip in the
Netherlands, and committed England fully to a cause for which she felt
no enthusiasm. She encouraged every branch of industry, commerce,
trade, fostered everything which would lead to prosperity. Listened to
Raleigh's plans for colonization in America, permitting the New Colony
to be called "Virginia" in her honor (the Virgin Queen). She chartered
the "Merchant Company," intended to absorb the new trade with the
Indies (1600), and which has expanded into a British Empire in India.

But amid all this triumph, a sad and solitary woman sat on the throne
of England. The only relation she had in the world was her cousin, Mary
Stuart, who was plotting to undermine and supplant her.

The question of Elizabeth's legitimacy was an ever recurring one, and
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