Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I THE CHIEF CRISES IN THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLAND
- BOOK II ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE KINGDOM INDEPENDENTLY IN ITS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
- BOOK III QUEEN ELIZABETH. CLOSE CONNEXION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I Elizabeth's accession. Triumph of the Reformation
- CHAP. II Outlines of the Reformation in Scotland
- CHAP. III Mary Stuart in Scotland. Relation of the two Queens to each other
- CHAP. IV Interdependence of the European dissensions in Politics and Religion
- CHAP. V The fate of Mary Stuart
- CHAP. VI The Invincible Armada
- CHAP. VII The later years of Queen Elizabeth
- BOOK IV FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER THE STUARTS
- BOOK V DISPUTES WITH PARLIAMENT DURING THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I AND THE EARLIER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
CHAP. V - The fate of Mary Stuart
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I THE CHIEF CRISES IN THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ENGLAND
- BOOK II ATTEMPTS TO CONSOLIDATE THE KINGDOM INDEPENDENTLY IN ITS TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL RELATIONS
- BOOK III QUEEN ELIZABETH. CLOSE CONNEXION OF ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I Elizabeth's accession. Triumph of the Reformation
- CHAP. II Outlines of the Reformation in Scotland
- CHAP. III Mary Stuart in Scotland. Relation of the two Queens to each other
- CHAP. IV Interdependence of the European dissensions in Politics and Religion
- CHAP. V The fate of Mary Stuart
- CHAP. VI The Invincible Armada
- CHAP. VII The later years of Queen Elizabeth
- BOOK IV FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER THE STUARTS
- BOOK V DISPUTES WITH PARLIAMENT DURING THE LATER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES I AND THE EARLIER YEARS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
Summary
How completely the circumstances of these times are misunderstood, when they are measured by the rules of an age of peace! Rather they were filled with hostilities in which politics and religion were mingled; foreign war was at the same time a domestic one. The religious confessions were at the same time political programmes.
The Queen took up arms not to make conquests, but to secure her very existence against a daily growing power that openly threatened her, before it had become completely an overmatch for her: she provoked an open war: but she had not done enough when she now, as is necessary in such cases, took into consideration the training of soldiers, securing the harbours, fortifying strong places, improving the navy: the most pressing anxiety arose from the general Catholic agitation in the country.
Elizabeth's statesmen were well aware that the sharp prosecution of the seminarist priests was not enough to put an end to it. With reference to the laity, the Lord Treasurer, however strict in other respects, recommends to his sovereign quite a different mode of proceeding. We should never proceed to capital punishment of such men: we should rather mitigate the oath imposed on them: in particular we should never force the nobles to a final decision between their religious inclinations and their political duties, never drive them to despair. But at the same time he gives a warning against awakening any hope in them that their demands could ever be satisfied, for this would only make them more obstinate.
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- A History of EnglandPrincipally in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 300 - 315Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1875