HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



She subsequently, however, attended him as he 

 was recovering from an attack of small-pox at 

 Glasgow, and on his convalescence, placed him, 

 not in Holyrood, but in a solitary house near 

 Edinburgh, called Kirk-of-Field. He had not 

 been there many days, when the house was 

 blown up, and his body found a short distance 

 off. A licentious nobleman, named Bothwell, 

 afterwards Duke of Orkney, who had become a 

 favourite of the queen, was considered the in- 

 stigator of the crime, and yet in a few months 

 after Darnley's death she married Bothwell ac- 

 cording to the rites of the Protestant Church. 

 This excited so much indignation among her 

 subjects, that the same Protestant lords who had 

 effected the Reformation, and were the friends of 

 Elizabeth, easily obtained the possession of her 

 person, and having deposed her, crowned her 

 infant son as king, under the title of JAMES VI. 

 while the regency was vested in the Earl of Moray. 

 In May 1568, Mary escaped from her prison in 

 Lochleven, and put herself at the head of a body 

 of her partisans ; but was defeated by the Regent 

 at the battle of Langside, near Glasgow, and was 

 then compelled to seek refuge in England. By 

 placing her rival under strict confinement, and 

 extending an effectual protection to the Regents 

 Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton, who succes- 

 sively governed Scotland, Elizabeth fortified her- 

 self in a great degree against the Catholic con- 

 federacy. 



GOVERNMENT OF ELIZABETH. 



At this time parliament was much more under 

 the control of the sovereign than it had formerly 

 been. An idea was now beginning to arise, very 

 much through the supremacy which the sovereigns 

 had acquired over the church, that the right of 

 the crown was one derived from God, and that 

 the people had nothing to do with it, except to 

 obey what it dictated to them. Of this notion, no 

 one took so much advantage, or was at so much 

 pains to impress it, as Elizabeth. Her government 

 consisted entirely of herself and her ministers. 

 All her ministers, the chief of whom were Lord 

 Burghley, his second son, Lord Robert Cecil, and 

 Sir Francis Walsingham, were of one complexion 

 circumspect and penetrating men, ardently devoted 

 to their country, their mistress, and to the Protes- 

 tant religion. That religion Elizabeth continued 

 to support by the most rigorous means. She 

 established a High Commission Court to carry into 

 effect the Act of Supremacy, which was directed 

 fully more against the extreme Protestants or 

 Puritans, who obtained their views of ecclesiastical 

 polity from Geneva, than against the Roman 

 Catholics. Yet, of the latter, one hundred and 

 eighty suffered death for violation of the law 

 during this reign. 



The Catholic powers of the continent formed 

 many schemes for annoying or dethroning Eliza- 

 beth ; and the imprisoned Scottish queen or her ad- 

 herents were generally concerned in them. Philip 

 II. of Spain, whose offer of marriage she had 

 refused, determined at length to make a decisive 

 effort, and commenced the preparation of a vast 

 fleet, which he termed the Invincible Armada, with 

 which he designed to invade the English shores. 

 Elizabeth, her ministers, and people, beheld the 

 preparations with much concern ; and with a view 



to guard against plots by Catholics at home, an 

 act was passed in 1585 declaring that any person, 

 by or for whom any plot should be made against 

 the Queen of England, should be guilty of treason. 

 When, soon after, a young gentleman named 

 Babington formed a conspiracy for assassinating 

 Elizabeth, and placing Mary on the throne, the 

 latter queen became of course liable to the punish- 

 ment for treason, although herself innocent She 

 was subjected to a formal trial in her prison of 

 Fotheringhay Castle, and found guilty. Elizabeth 

 hesitated for some time to strike an unoffending 

 and unfortunate person, related to her by blood, 

 and her equal in rank. But at length fears for 

 herself got the better of her sense of justice, and, 

 it may be added, of her good sense, and she gave 

 her sanction to an act which leaves an ineffaceable 

 stain upon her memory. On the 8th of February 

 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in the 

 hall of the castle, after a confinement of more than 

 eighteen years. 



James VI. was now, after a turbulent minority, 

 in possession of the reins of government in Scot- 

 land, but with little real power, being very depend- 

 ent on Elizabeth, who, besides, had no personal 

 liking for him, while he was much controlled 

 by the Presbyterian clergy, who asserted a 

 total independence of all temporal authority, and 

 considered themselves as the subjects alone of the 

 Divine founder of the Christian faith. 



SPANISH ARMADA REBELLIONS IN IRELAND. 



In 1588, the Spanish Armada, consisting of 130 

 great vessels, with 20,000 land-forces and 8000 

 sailors on board, and commanded by the Duke of 

 Medina Sidonia, set sail against England, while 

 34,000 more land-forces prepared to join from the 

 Netherlands. Active measures were taken to 

 defend the country ; thirty vessels prepared to 

 meet the Armada, and another fleet endeavoured 

 to block up the Netherlands forces in port. The 

 command was taken by Lord Howard of Effing- 

 ham, with whom were Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, 

 and other celebrated naval captains of the day. 

 Troops were also mustered on land to repel the 

 invaders, and disposed in three armies. The 

 English Roman Catholics came patriotically for- 

 ward to defend their country. The English fleet 

 attacked the Armada in the Channel, and was 

 found to have a considerable advantage in the 

 lightness and manageableness of the vessels. As 

 the Armada sailed along, it was infested by the 

 English in the rear. On the 27th of July, the 

 Armada anchored off Calais, where the Duke of 

 Parma with his army was to go on board. At mid- 

 night, however, eight ships were set on fire, and 

 sent drifting among the Spanish vessels, which put 

 to sea in a panic. At daybreak they were attacked 

 by Howard and his captains. The unwieldy 

 Spanish ships proved no match for their smaller 

 and more active adversaries, and at length fled. 

 They proceeded northward, and were followed by 

 the English fleet as far as Flamborough Head, 

 where they were terribly shattered by a storm. 

 Seventeen of the ships, having 5000 men on board, 

 were cast away on the Western Isles and the 

 coast of Ireland. Of the whole Armada, fifty-four 

 ships only returned to Spain, and these in a 

 wretched condition. 



Though the Protestant Church had meanwhile 



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