Both nature and fortune conspired to render Queen Elizabeth the ambition of her sex, and an ornament to crowned heads. This is not a subject for the pen of a monk, or any such cloistered writer. For such men, though keen in style, are attached to their party; and transmit things of this nature unfaithfully to posterity. Certainly this is a province for men of the first rank; or such as have sate at the helm of states; and been acquainted with the depths and secrets of civil affairs.

All ages have esteemed a female government a rarity; if prosperous, a wonder; and if both long and prosperous, almost a miracle. But this lady reigned forty-four years complete, yet did not outlive her felicity. Of this felicity I purpose to say somewhat, without running into praises; for praise is the tribute of men, but felicity the gift of God.

And first, I account it a part of her felicity, that she was advanced to the throne from a private fortune. For it is implanted in the nature of men, to esteem unexpected success an additional felicity. But what I mean, is, that princes educated in courts, as the undoubted heirs of a crown, are corrupted by indulgence, and thence generally rendered less capable, and less moderate in the management of affairs. And, therefore, we find those the best rulers, who are disciplined by both fortunes. Such was, with us, King Henry the Seventh, and with the French, Louis the Twelfth, who both of them came to the crown almost at the same time, not only from a private, but also from an adverse and rugged fortune; and the former proved famous for his prudence, the other for his justice. In the same manner this princess also had the dawn of her fortune chequered, but in her reign it proved unusually constant and steady. From her birth, she was entitled to the succession, but afterwards disinherited, and then postponed. In the reign of her brother, her fortune was more favourable and serene; but in the reign of her sister, more hazardous and tempestuous. Nor was she advanced on a sudden from a prison to the throne, which might have made her haughty and vindictive, but being restored to her liberty, and still growing in hopes, at last in, a happy calm, she obtained the crown without opposition or competitor. And this I mention to show that Divine Providence intending an excellent princess, prepared and advanced her by such degrees of discipline.

Nor ought the misfortunes of her mother to sully the glory of her birth, especially, because it is evident that King Henry the Eighth was engaged in a new amour before his rage kindled against Queen Anne; and because the temper of that king is censured by posterity, as exceedingly prone both to amours and jealousies, and violent in both, even to the effusion of blood. Add to this, that she was cut off through an accusation manifestly improbable, and built upon slight conjectures, as was then secretly whispered; and Queen Anne herself protested her innocence with an undaunted greatness of mind, at the time of her death. For, by a faithful and generous messenger, as she supposed, she, just before her execution, sent this message to the king: 'That his majesty constantly held on in his purpose of heaping new honours upon her, for that first he raised her from a private gentlewoman, to the honour of a marchioness; next advanced her into a partnership of his bed and kingdom; and when now there remained no higher earthly honour, he designed to promote her an innocent to the crown of martyrdom.' But the messenger durst not carry this to the king, now plunged in a new amour; though fame, the asserter of truth, has transmitted it to posterity.

Again, it is no inconsiderable part of Queen Elizabeth's felicity, that the course of her reign was not only long, but fell within that season of her life which is fittest for governing. Thus she began her reign at twenty-five, and continued it to the seventieth year of her age. So that she neither felt the harshness of a minority, the checks of a governor's power, nor the inconveniences of extreme old age, which is attended with miseries enough in private men, but in crowned heads, besides the ordinary miseries, it usually occasions a decay of the government, and ends with an inglorious exit. For scarce any king bas lived to extreme old age, without suffering some diminution in empire and esteem. Of this we have an eminent instance in Philip the Second, king of Spain, a potent prince, and admirably versed in the arts of government, who, in the decline of life, was thoroughly sensible of this misfortune, and therefore wisely submitted to the necessity of things, voluntarily quitted his acquisitions in France, established a firm peace with that kingdom, and attempted the like with others, that so he might leave all quiet and composed to his successor. Queen Elizabeth's fortune, on the contrary, was so constant and fixed, that no declension of affairs followed her lively, though declining age; nay, for an assured monument of her felicity, she died not till the rebellion of Ireland ended in a victory, lest her glory should otherwise have appeared any way ruffled or incomplete. It should likewise be considered over what kind of people she reigned. For had her empire fallen among the Palmyrenians or in soft unwarlike Asia, it had been a less wonder, since a female in the throne would have suited an effeminate people; but in England, a hardy military nation, for all things to be directed and governed by a woman, is a matter of the highest admiration.

Yet this temper of her people, eager for war, and impatient of peace did not prevent her from maintaining it all her reign. And this peaceable disposition of hers joined with success, I reckon one of her chiefest praises; as being happy for her people, becoming her sex, and a satisfaction to her conscience. Indeed, about the tenth year of her reign, there rose a small commotion in the north of her kingdom but it was presently suppressed. The rest of her reign passed in a secure and profound peace. And I judge it a glorious peace for two reasons which, though they make nothing to its merit, yet contribute much to its honour. The one, that it was rendered more conspicuous and illustrious by the calamities of our neighbours, as by so many flames about us. The other, that the blessings of peace were not unattended with the glory of arms, since she not only preserved, but advanced the honour of the English name for martial greatness. For what by the supplies she sent into the Netherlands, France, and Scotland; the expeditions by sea to the Indies, and some of them round the world; the fleets sent to infest Portugal, and the coasts of Spain; and what by the frequent conquests and reductions of the Irish rebels, we suffered no decay in the ancient military fame and virtue of our nation.

It is likewise a just addition to her glory, that neighbouring princes were supported in their thrones by her timely aids; and that suppliant states, which, through the misconduct of their kings, were abandoned, devoted to the cruelty of their ministers, the fury of the multitude, and all manner of desolation, were relieved by her.

Nor were her counsels less beneficent than her supplies, as having so often interceded with the king of Spain, to reconcile him to his subjects in the Netherlands, and reduce them to obedience, upon some tolerable conditions. And she, with great sincerity, importuned the kings of France, by repeated admonitions, to observe their own edicts, that promised peace to their subjects. It is true her advice proved ineffectual, for the common interest of Europe would not allow the first, lest the ambition of Spain being uncurbed, should fly out, as affairs then stood, to the prejudice of the kingdoms and states of Christendom; and the latter was prevented by the massacre of so many innocent men, who, with their wives and children, were butchered in their own houses by the scum of the people, armed and let loose like so many beasts of prey upon them by public authority. This bloodshed cried aloud for vengeance, that the kingdom stained by so horrible an impiety might be expiated by intestine slaughter. However, by interposing, she performed the part of a faithful, prudent, and generous ally.

There is also another reason for admiring this peaceful reign, so much endeavoured and maintained by the queen, viz., that it did not proceed from any disposition of the times, but from her own prudent and discreet conduct. For as she struggled with faction at home upon account of religion, and as the strength and protection of this kingdom was a kind of bulwark to all Europe against the extravagant ambition and formidable power of Spain, there wanted no occasion of war; yet, with her force and policy, she surmounted these difficulties. This appeared by the most memorable event in point of felicity, that ever happened through the whole course of affairs in our time. For when the Spanish Armada entered our seas, to the terror of all Europe, and with such assurance of victory, they took not a single boat of ours, nor burnt the least cottage, nor touched our shore, but were defeated in the engagement, dispersed by a miserable flight, and frequent wrecks, and so left us at home in the enjoyment of an undisturbed peace.

Nor was she less happy in disappointing conspiracies, than in subduing the forces of her open enemies. For several plots against her life were fortunately discovered, and defeated. And yet upon this account, she was not the more fearful or anxious of her person, for she neither doubted her guards, nor confined herself to her palace, but appeared in public as usual, remembering her deliverance, but forgetting her danger.

The nature of the times wherein she flourished must also be considered. For some ages are so barbarous and ignorant, that men may be as easily governed as sheep. But this princess lived in a learned and polite age, when it was impossible to be eminent without great parts, and a singular habit of virtue.

Again, female reigns are usually eclipsed by marriage, and all the praises thus transferred upon the husband; whilst those who live single appropriate the whole glory to themselves. And this is more peculiarly the case of Queen Elizabeth, because she had no supporters of her government but those of her own making: she had no brother, no uncle, nor any other of the royal family to partake her cares, and share in her administration. And for those she advanced to places of trust, she kept such a tight rein upon them, and so distributed her favours, that she laid each of them under the greatest obligation and concern to please her, whilst she always remained mistress of herself.

She was indeed childless, and left no issue behind her; which has been the case of many fortunate princes, as of Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Trajan, &c., and is a disputed point; some taking it for a diminution of felicity, as if men could not be completely happy unless blessed both in their own persons, and in their children; and others accounting it the perfection of felicity, which then alone seems to be complete, when fortune has no more power over it; which, if children are left behind, can never be the case.

She had likewise her outward embellishments; a tall stature, a graceful shape and make, a most majestic aspect, mixed with sweetness, and a happy state of health. Besides all this, she was strong and vigorous to the last; never experienced a reverse of fortune, nor felt the miseries of old age, and obtained that complacency in death which Augustus Cæsar so passionately desired, by a gentle and easy exit. This is also recorded of that excellent emperor, Antoninus Pius, whose death resembled a sweet and gentle slumber. So likewise in the distemper of the queen, there was nothing shocking, nothing presaging, nothing unbecoming of human nature. She was not desirous of life, nor impatient under sickness, nor racked with pain. She had no dire or disagreeable symptom; but all things were of that kind as argued rather the frailty, than the corruption or disgrace of nature Being emaciated by an extreme dryness of body, and the cares that attend a crown, and never refreshed with wine, or with a full and plentiful diet, she was, a few days before her death, struck with a dead-palsy; yet, what is unusual in that distemper, retained, in some degree, her speech, memory, and motion. In this condition she continued but a little while, so that it did not seem the last act of her life but the first step to her death. For to live long after our faculties are impaired, is accounted miserable; but for death to hasten on with a gradual loss of the senses, is a gentle, a pleasing, and an easy dissolution.

To fill up the measure of her felicity, she was exceeding happy, not only in her own person, but also in the abilities and virtues of her ministers of state; for she had the fortune to meet with such as perhaps this island never before produced at one time. But God, when he favours princes, raises up and adorns the spirits of their ministers also.

There remain two posthumous felicities, which may seem more noble and august than those that attended her living - the one is that of her successor, and the other of her memory; for she had such a successor, who, though he may exceed and eclipse her greatness by his masculine virtues, his issue, and a new accession of empire, yet is zealous of her name and glory, and gives a kind of perpetuity to her acts, having made little change either in the choice of ministers or the method of government, so that a son rarely succeeds a father with less alteration or disturbance.

As for her memory, it is so much in the mouths and so fresh in the minds of men, that envy being extinguished, and her fame lit up by death, the felicity of her memory seems to vie with the felicity of her life; for if through party zeal or difference in religion a factious report be spread abroad, it is neither true nor can be long-lived. And for this reason in particular I have made the present collection of her felicities and the marks of the Divine favour towards her, that no malicious person might dare to curse where God has so highly blessed.

If it should be here objected, as Cicero objected to Cæsar, 'We have matter enough to admire, but would gladly see something to praise,' I answer, that true admiration is a superlative degree of praise. Nor could that felicity above described be the portion of any, but such as are remarkably supported and indulged by the Divine favour, and in some measure worked it out by their own morals and virtues. I shall, however, add a word or two as to the morals of the queen, but only in such particulars as have occasioned some malicious tongues to traduce her.

As to her religion, she was pious, moderate, constant, and an enemy to novelty; and for her piety, though the marks of it are most conspicuous in her acts and administrations, yet there were risible marks of it, both in the course of her life and her ordinary conversation. She was seldom absent from divine service and other duties of religion, either in her chapel or closet; she was very conversant in the Scriptures and writings of the fathers, especially St. Augustine. Herself composed certain prayers upon some emergent occasions. When she mentioned the name of God, though in ordinary discourse, she generally added the title of Creator, and composed both her eyes and countenance to some sort of humility and reverence, which I have myself often observed.

As to what some have given out, that she was altogether unmindful of mortality, so as not to bear the mention of old age or death, it is absolutely false, for, several years before her death, she would often facetiously call herself 'the old woman,' and discourse about what kind of epitaph she liked, adding, that she was no lover of pompous titles, but only desired her name might be recorded in a line or two, which should briefly express 'her name, her virginity, the time of her reign, the reformation of religion under it, and her preservation of peace'. It is true, in the flower of her age, being importuned to declare her successor, she answered, 'That she could by no means endure a shroud to be held before her eyes while she was living.' And yet, some years before her death, at a time when she was thoughtful, and probably meditating upon her mortality, one of her familiars mentioning in conversation that several great offices and places in the state were kept vacant too long, she rose up and said, with more than ordinary warmth, 'That she was sure her place would not be long vacant.'

As to her moderation in religion, it may require some pause, because of the severity of the laws made against her subjects of the Romish persuasion; but I will mention such things as were well known and carefully observed by myself. It is certain she was in her sentiments averse to the forcing of conscience, yet, on the other hand, she would not suffer the state to be endangered under the pretence of conscience and religion. Hence she concluded, that to allow a liberty and toleration of two religions by public authority in a military and high-mettled nation, that might easily fall from difference in judgment to blows, would be certain destruction. Thus, in the beginning of her reign, when all things looked suspicious, she kept some of the prelates, who were of a more turbulent and factious spirit, prisoners at large, though not without the warrant of the law; but to the rest of both orders she used no severe inquisition, but protected them by a generous connivance. And this was the posture of affairs at first. Nor did she abate much of this clemency, though provoked by the excommunication of Pope Pius Quintus, which might have raised her indignation and driven her to new measures, but still she retained her own generous temper; for this prudent and courageous lady was not moved with the noise of those terrible threats, being secure of the fidelity and affection of her subjects, and of the inability of the Popish faction within the kingdom to hurt her, unless seconded by a foreign enemy.

But about the three-and-twentieth year of her reign the face of affairs changed. This difference of the times is not artfully feigned to serve a turn, but stands expressed in the public records, and engraven as it were in leaves of brass; for before that year none of her subjects of the Romish religion had been punished with any severity by the laws formerly enacted. But now the ambitious and monstrous designs of Spain, to conquer this kingdom, began by degrees to open themselves; a principal part of which was, by all public ways and means to raise a faction in the heart of the kingdom of such as were disaffected and desirous of innovation, in order to join the enemy upon the invasion. Their hopes of effecting this were grounded upon the difference there was amongst us in religion, whence they resolved to labour this point effectually. And the seminaries at that time budding, priests were sent into England to sow and raise up an affection for the Romish religion, to teach and inculcate the validity of the pope's excommunication in releasing subjects from their allegiance, and to awaken and prepare men's minds to an expectation of a change in the government.

About the same time Ireland was attempted by an invasion and the name and government of Queen Elizabeth vilified and traduced by scandalous libels; in short, there was an unusual swelling in the state, the prognostic of a greater commotion. Yet I will not affirm that all the priests were concerned in the plot, or privy to the designs then carrying on, but only that they were corrupt instruments of other men's malice. It is, however, attested by the confession of many, that almost all the priests sent into this kingdom from the year above-mentioned to the thirtieth year of the queen, wherein the design of Spain and the pope was put in execution by the armada, had it in their instructions, among other parts of their function, to insinuate 'That affairs could not possibly continue long as they were, that they would soon put on a new face, that the pope and the Catholic princes would take care for the English state, provided the English were not their own hindrance.' Again, some of the priests had manifestly engaged themselves in plots and contrivances, which tended to the undermining and subverting of the government, and as the strongest proof, the whole train of the plot was discovered by letters intercepted from several parts, wherein it was expressly mentioned, 'That the vigilancy of the queen and her council, in respect of the Catholics would be baffled, because the queen only watched that no nobleman or person of distinction should rise to head the Catholic faction; whereas the design they laid was, that all things should be disposed and prepared by private men of an inferior rank without their conspiring or consulting together, but wholly in the secret way of confession.' And these were the artifices then practised, which are so familiar and customary to that order of men.

In such an impending storm of dangers the queen was obliged, by the law of necessity, to restrain such of her subjects as were disaffected and rendered incurable by these poisons, and who in the meantime began to grow rich by retirement and exemption from public offices; and accordingly some severer laws were enacted. But the evil daily increasing, and the origin thereof being charged upon the seminary priests, bred in foreign parts, and supported by the bounty and benevolence of foreign princes, the professed enemies of this kingdom, which priests had lived in places where the name of Queen Elizabeth was always tacked to the titles of heretic, excommunicated, and accursed, and who, though they themselves were not engaged in the treasonable practices, yet were known to be the intimate friends of such as had set their hands to villanies of that kind, and who by their arts and poisonous insinuations had infected the whole body of the Catholics, which before was less malignant; there could no other remedy be found but the forbidding such persons all entrance into this kingdom upon pain of death, which at last, in the twenty-seventh year of her reign, was accordingly enacted.

Yet the event itself, which followed soon after, when so violent storm fell upon this kingdom with all its weight, did not in the least abate the envy and hatred of these men, but rather increased it, as if they had divested themselves of all affection to their country. And afterwards indeed, though our fears of Spain, the occasion of this severity, were abated; yet because the memory of the former times was deeply imprinted in men's minds, and because it would have looked like inconstancy to have abrogated the laws already made, or remissness to have neglected them, the very constitution and nature of affairs suggested to the queen that she could not with safety return to the state of things that obtained before the three-and-twentieth year of her reign.

To this may be added the industry of some to increase the revenues of the exchequer, and the earnestness of the ministers of justice, who usually regard no other safety of their country but what consists in the law, both which called loudly for the laws to be put in execution. However, the queen, as a specimen of her good nature, so far took on the edge of the law, that but a few priests in proportion were put to death. And this we may say not by way of defence, for the case needs none, as the safety of the kingdom turned upon it; and as the measure of all this severity came far short of those bloody massacres that are scarce fit to be named among Christians, and have proceeded rather from arrogance and malice than from necessity in the Catholic countries, and thus we think we have made it appear that the queen was moderate in the point of religion, and that the change which ensued was not owing to her nature, but to the necessity of the times.

The greatest proof of her constancy in religion and religious worship is, that notwithstanding popery, which in her sister's reign had been strenuously established by public authority and the utmost diligence, began now to take deep root, and was confirmed by the consent and zeal of all those in office and places of trust; yet because it was not agreeable to the Word of God, nor to the primitive purity, nor to her own conscience, she, with much courage and with very few helps, extirpated and abolished it. Nor did she do this precipitantly or in a heat, but prudently and seasonably, as may appear from many particulars, and among the rest from a certain answer she occasionally made; for upon her first accession to the throne, when the prisoners according to custom, were released, as she went to chapel, a courtier who took a more than ordinary freedom, whether of his own motion or set on by a wiser head, delivered a petition into her hand, and in a great concourse of people, said aloud, 'That there were still four or five prisoners unjustly detained, that he came to petition for their liberty as well as the rest, and these were the four Evangelists and the Apostle St. Paul, who had been long imprisoned in an unknown tongue, and not suffered to converse with the people.' The queen answered with great prudence, 'That it was best to consult them first, whether they were willing to be released or no.' And by thus striking a surprising question with a wary, doubtful answer, she reserved the whole matter entirely in her own breast.

Nor yet did she introduce this alteration timorously, and by fits and starts, but orderly, gravely, and maturely; after a conference betwixt the parties, and calling a parliament; and thus, at length, within the compass of one year, she so ordered and established all things belonging to the church, as not to suffer the least alteration afterwards, during her reign. Nay, almost every session of parliament, her public admonition was, that no innovation might be made in the discipline or rites of the church. And thus much for her religion.

Some of the graver sort may, perhaps, aggravate her levities; in loving to be admired and courted, nay, and to have love-poems made on her; and continuing this humour longer than was decent for her years: yet to take even these matters in a milder sense, they claim a due admiration; being often found in fabulous narrations; as that of 'a certain queen in the fortunate islands, in whose court love was allowed, but lust banished.' Or if a harsher construction can be put upon them, they are still to be highly admired; as these gaieties did not much eclipse her fame, nor in the least obscure her grandeur, nor injure her government, nor hinder the administration other affairs; for things of this sort are rarely so well tempered and regulated in princes.

This queen was certainly good and moral; and as such she desired to appear. She hated vice, and studied to grow famous by honourable courses. Thus, for example, having once ordered an express to be written to her ambassador, containing certain instructions, which he was privately to impart to the queen-mother of France, her secretary inserted a clause for the ambassador to use, importing, 'That they were two queens, from whose experience and arts of government, no less was expected than from the greatest kings.' She could not bear the comparison; but ordered it to be struck out, saying, 'She used quite different arts and methods of government, from the queen-mother.'

She was, also, not a little pleased, if any one by chance had dropped such an expression as this, 'That though she had lived in a private station, her excellencies could not have passed unobserved by the eye of the world.' So unwilling was she, that any of her virtue, or praise, should be owing to the height of her fortune.

But if I should enter upon her praises, whether moral or political, I must either fall into a common-place of virtues, which will be unworthy of so extraordinary a princess; or if I would give them their proper grace and lustre, I must enter into a history of her life; which requires more leisure and a richer vein than mine. To speak the truth, the only proper encomiast of this lady is time; which, for so many ages as it has run, never produced anything like her, of the same sex, for the government of a kingdom.