conduct as very different to that of Mary Stuart when on the throne of Scotland. Even in an age coarse and unrefined, compared with that of the last century, her conduct strongly contrasts with that of most other female sovereigns.

In the parliament, A.D. 1571, an act was passed, enacting severe measures against all those who should call in question Elizabeth's title to the throne, or support the claim of any one to be her successor. This, and other measures of precaution, resulted from the designs in which Mary was concerned; but they also included the claims in behalf of the family of Suffolk. At the commencement of this parliament, the lord keeper, in his address, dwelt upon the benefits the people enjoyed under their present monarch. He said,

The first and chief is, restoring and setting at liberty God's holy word amongst us, the greatest and most precious treasure that can be in this world; for that either doth or should benefit us in the greatest degree; to wit, our minds and souls: and look, how much our souls excel our bodies, so much must needs the benefits of our souls excel the benefits of our bodies; whereby also, as by a necessary consequent, we are delivered and made free from the bondage of the Roman tyranny; therefore this is to be thought of as the most principal benefit." He spoke of the benefits of peace, which had then been enjoyed for ten years. Elizabeth's refusal to form any union with the princes of other lands, doubtless was one cause of the long continuance of peace. He well observed, that "a man who would sufficiently consider all the commodities of peace, ought to call to remembrance all the miseries of war." Would that, in our day, men thought more of the blessings of peace, and were more thankful for them.-It is not foreign to the subject to remark, that the greatest modern English general of his day, in his private and confidential despatches, when commanding a victorious army, regretted continually that the inhabitants of Britain were not sufficiently alive to the miseries of

warfare. In the third place, the lord keeper spoke of the great benefits of clemency and mercy, and appealed to his auditors whether "it had ever been seen or read, that any prince of this realm, during ten whole years and more, hath had his hands so clear of blood." This, undoubtedly, was the fact, and if the later years of Elizabeth were less free from such executions for crimes of state, it may be said, Was there not a cause ? The Christian historian will not say that there was an adequate cause; but if the matter be viewed impartially, Elizabeth had a right to stand on higher grounds than other sovereigns.

In this year, also, an instance of equity, rare in the annals of our early monarchs, was shown. The amounts borrowed by compulsory loans, at the beginning of the reign, were repaid. These are undoubted facts, showing the fruits of the national profession of the true religion. But Cecil was aware that a storm was at hand. Early in 1571, he ascertained that Ridolfi, the pope's agent, was in secret communication with the bishop of Ross, Mary's ambassador in London, and that there was a plan in agitation among some of the nobility for another rebellion, and an invasion that summer. The bishop admitted the correspondence of Mary with the duke of Alva and the pope, but denied the knowledge of any attempt to be made on England. Letters from Mary had been intercepted in March, 1571, which showed her participation in the schemes of Ridolfi and Alva. We cannot blame her for desiring to regain her full liberty and power, but it requires more than common credulity to suppose, that she could be ignorant that these designs involved the death of Elizabeth, by secret murder or open violence. The extent of the plot remained unknown for some months longer, when the discovery of a sum of money, and of some letters in cypher, in course of transmission from the duke of Norfolk to Mary's friends in Scotland, led to the knowledge that he was implicated in an underplot with France, and proofs were found that he was

also in correspondence with the papal conspirators. The key to his cypher, and other papers were found; the extent of the conspiracy became more and more fully developed.

Norfolk was again arrested in September, 1571. His power and popularity rendered any proceedings against him dangerous to the queen. The nobles were ready to support him; a plan to murder lord Burghley was devised at the instigation of the Spanish ambassador: this was disclosed by some of the agents, and proved to be a branch of the great conspiracy to place Mary on the throne of England. It was evident, that upon the result of the proceedings against the duke of Norfolk the stability of Elizabeth's govern ment would mainly depend. He was brought to trial, January 16, 1572. Trials for treason, in those days, were conducted in a manner very different from the course now pursued; the prisoner was under many disadvantages. But Norfolk's trial was not unfair ac cording to the usages of the times. The trial lasted twelve hours. Norfolk was allowed to state all that he wished to say. We need not dwell on the technicalities of the evidence; it is clear, from the duke's own admissions, that he fully participated in Mary's projects, and was implicated in the designs of the pope to an extent which he knew was then considered treasonable. The peers, who seem to have been fairly selected, unanimously pronounced him guilty. He acknowledged the justice of the sentence, but supplicated most earnestly for mercy. His communications show that he had been wrought upon by others, but that he was guilty of treasonable designs; and there is proof that he had continued these, even after he was imprisoned. The queen was unwilling that Norfolk should suffer; she repeatedly caused the execution to be stayed at length, at the urgent desire of the House of Commons, he was ordered to be beheaded on June 2, 1572. He was the first nobleman executed in this reign: the long interval of thirteen years passing with

out such a tragedy, favourably contrasts the reign of Elizabeth with those of her father, brother, and sister. It was now clearly proved that Mary Stuart was personally concerned in the great conspiracy against Elizabeth. Many of the best councillors of the latter urged that she should be brought to account for her proceedings, that this perpetual source of disquiet to Elizabeth and her Protestant subjects might be closed; but Elizabeth would not consent to such proceedings against Mary. She refused to allow a bill of attainder to be passed by the parliament, which would have sent Mary to the scaffold; but she did not hesitate to call upon the king of France, when pleading for her liberation, to say whether she ought to be required to give up the means which the detention of Mary afforded for the safety of the state. The particulars of the designs in which Norfolk and the queen of Scots were engaged having been communicated to the French monarch, he said, that it was too probable Mary would not cease her plots till she lost her head, which would be from her own fault and folly, and that he saw it was in vain for him to think to help her. When her conduct drew these remarks from a main supporter of her cause, it is not surprising that orders should be given to reduce her attendants to sixteen persons, and that the earl of Shrewsbury should be directed to question her upon the points already discovered, with a view to ascertain some further matters from her own mouth. But Mary was on her guard: she refused to utter anything she knew, unless allowed access to Elizabeth.

The murderous nature of the plot then in progress was evinced from the design above mentioned, for the murder of lord Burghley, by whose steady counsels the designs against Elizabeth were chiefly disappointed. The secretary of the Spanish ambassador had some concern in this affair, which was disclosed by an accomplice; but all participation was denied by the ambassador. Walsingham also succeeded in obtaining the avowal of a Jesuit at Paris, to the existence of

designs for the murder of Elizabeth, that Mary might be placed on the throne, whereby alone, it was considered, all Christendom could be brought to what papists called the Catholic faith. An effort was made by a numerous body in the parliament to induce the queen to consent to proceedings against Mary as a criminal. Had Elizabeth desired to get rid of her rival by such measures, here was a fair pretext; but after thanking them for their care, she declined such a course as then inexpedient. This should have made Mary more cautious as to future proceedings; however, as the king of France had said, "she was not to be warned."

The queen further showed her value for Burghley by appointing him lord high treasurer, on the death of the marquis of Winchester, one of those time-serving nobles who accommodated himself to the changes of religion during the last four reigns. The order of the garter was also given to that great statesman, who now had the heavy pressure of public affairs almost exclusively upon himself. The number of papers existing in the public offices and repositories, which bear indisputable marks of having passed under the hands of lord Burghley, fully prove the vast extent of his labours, with the manner in which his personal attention was required by a variety of affairs, from the most trifling, such as regulations for fashionable clothing, to matters of peace or war, with many others of the deepest interest in church and state.

The extent of the designs for the destruction of the Protestants throughout Europe was manifested by the massacre at Paris, and in other principal towns of France, on St. Bartholomew's day, August 24, 1572, in which, by a moderate calculation, more than thirty thousand unoffending and peaceable subjects were murdered in cold blood, at the command of their king, who had just before given them every reason to feel secure, and confident of his protection. The particulars belong to the history of France; when the news was received in England, the horror excited thereby wasvery