g executed when James assumed the sovereignty.

[Sidenote: Execution of Mary.]

Meanwhile, the unfortunate Mary pined in hopeless captivity. It was
natural for her to seek release, and also for her friends to help her.
Among her friends was the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman in
England, and a zealous Catholic. He aspired to her hand; but Elizabeth
chose to consider his courtship as a treasonable act, and Norfolk was
arrested. On being afterwards released, he plotted for the liberation
of Mary, and his intrigues brought him to the block. The unfortunate
captive, wearied and impatient, naturally sought the assistance of
foreign powers. She had her agents in Rome, France, Spain, and the Low
Countries. The Catholics in England espoused her cause, and a
conspiracy was formed to deliver her, assassinate Elizabeth, and
restore the Catholic religion. From the fact that Mary was privy to
that part of it which concerned her own deliverance, she was brought
to trial as a criminal, found guilty by a court incompetent to sit on
her case, and executed without remorse, 8th February, 1587.

Few persons have excited more commiseration than this unfortunate
queen, both on account of her exalted rank, and her splendid
intellectual accomplishments. Whatever obloquy she merited for her
acts as queen of Scotland, no one can blame her for meditating escape
from the power of her zealous but more fortunate rival; and her
execution is the greatest blot in the character of the queen of
England, at this time in the zenith of her glory.

Next to the troubles with Scotland growing out of the interference of
Elizabeth, the great political events of the reign were the long and
protracted war with Spain, and the Irish rebellion. Both of these
events were important.

Spain was at this time governed by Philip II., son of the emperor
Charles, one of the most bigoted Catholics of the age, and allied with
Catharine de Medicis of France for the entire suppression of
Protestantism. She incited her son Charles IX. to the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and Philip established the inquisition in Flanders. This
measure provoked an insurrection, to suppress which the Duke of Alva,
one of the most celebrated of the generals of Charles V., was sent
into the Netherlands with a large army, and almost unlimited powers.
The cruelties of Alva were unparalleled. In six years, eighteen
thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner, and Alva
counted on t