3 6 TNTR OD UC TOR Y. 



whole conduct was governed, or by the success which followed 

 on her efforts. 



At the time of Elizabeth's accession the condition of England 

 was lower than it had been for centuries. Cities once flourish- 

 ing had decayed during the evil days of her father, her brother, 

 and her sister. The exchequer was so poor that it constantly 

 needed the exercise of a prudence which went to the verge of 

 penurious meanness in order that the government might be 

 carried on. The nation was too poor to assist the crown. 

 Elizabeth too was strictly honest in her* dealings. If she bor- 

 rowed, she paid, and she would have left a treasure at her 

 death but for the Irish rebellion of Tyrone and the misconduct 

 of Essex. She tried every device which the finance of the time 

 suggested to raise money, and if she failed in her projects she 

 met her disappointments by increased -parsimony. At the 

 period with which these volumes conclude, she was at the risk of 

 the two greatest dangers which she ran, the perils of fanatics 

 and assassins who were the agents or the dupes of Mary 

 Stuart, and the peril of encountering the ambition of Philip 

 and the military genius of Alva. 



I have ventured on this sketch of English politics, as repre- 

 sented by the acts and the policy of English sovereigns during 

 the fifteenth and the greater part of the sixteenth century, 

 because during the greater part of the time the administration 

 was that of the sovereign, and the fortunes of the people fol- 

 lowed the caprice or the wisdom of the monarch. For causes 

 which I must refer to in some detail hereafter, the condition of 

 the English people was that of an almost monotonous pros- 

 perity up to the end of the first quarter of the sixteenth century. 

 Thenceforward the violence, the profuseness, and the despotism 

 of Henry, and last of all his utter recklessness, wholly wrecked 

 that prosperity, and reduced England to the rank of the third- 

 rate power, which was of little account in the European sys- 

 tem. A century passed before the genius of Cromwell raised 

 it from its degradation, and though England was grievously 

 humiliated at the Restoration by the sordid and licentious 



