INTROD UCTOR ) '. 3 



incompetence. The seventeenth century is as attractive to the 

 historical economist as it is to the statesman and philosopher. 

 It is a period of strange and continuous progress. In one 

 particular only does it show signs of decay. The intellectual 

 vigour of its youth is followed by the senile pruriency of its 

 close. But the Court of the Restoration accounts for the fact 

 that the age of Shakespere and Milton is followed by that of 

 Farquhar and Dryden. 



The period with which I commence was one in which Eliz- 

 abeth's Government was in extreme peril. Everything hung 

 on her life, or seemed to hang, and she was threatened on all 

 sides. Among his many resources, Philip kept an office for 

 hiring assassins, and his vigorous and able deputy, Parma, 



as shrewd in bargaining with these adventurers, as he was 

 in the field or at a siege. Her rival and enemy Mary Stewart 



still alive, but in prison, and Elizabeth had lately obtained, 

 in the memoirs of Nau, her secretary, 1 evidence from her own 

 dictation of more than the crimes which her severest critics 

 have ever laid to her charge. But the queen was well 

 served, and those whom the discipline of her government 

 treated severely were sincerely attached to her. That Bur- 

 Icigh, Walsingham and Davison were acute and well-in- 

 formed I do not doubt, but Elizabeth was made more secure 



nst foes by the affection of her people than she was by 

 the services of the spies in the pay of her counsellors. Nor 

 do I believe, as some historians do, that Elizabeth was lulled 

 into false security by the blandishments of her deadliest 

 enemies. I prefer to conclude, as is most in accord with her 

 character, that she saw through the flatteries and falsehoods 

 of her enemies, and was wise enough to affect ignorance, but 



.kc all the means in her power to baffle them. That she 

 did not do more than she did was due to her poverty. I ler 

 father and brother and sister hail ruined the resources of the 

 country, and she had no opportunity for practising those 



moire of Nau, published by the Rev. Mr. Stevenson. The 



nl is in the Cotton MSS. I have examined it myself. 



I: 2 



