And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do but rest true."[4]

We shall see that this feeling showed itself still more unmistakably,
when, years later, men of all classes and of widely different
religious views rose to destroy the Armada,--that great fleet which
Spain sent to subjugate the English realm (SS398-401).

[2] Stubbs's pamphlet was entitled "The Discovery of the Gaping Gulf,
wherein England is likely to be swallowed up by another French
marriage, unless the Lords forbid the bans by letting her see the sin
and punishment thereof."
[3] Camden's "Annals," 1581.
[4] Shakespeare's "King John," Act V, scene vii; written after the
defeat of the Armada.

386. The Queen a Coquette.

During all this time the court buzzed with whispered scandals.
Elizabeth was by nature an incorrigible coquette. Robert Dudley, Earl
of Leicester, the Earl of Essex, and Sir Walter Raleigh were by turns
her favorites. Over her relations with Dudley there hangs the
terrible shadow of the suspected murder of his wife, the beautiful Amy
Robsart.[3]

[3] See the "De Quadra Letter" in Froude's "England."

Elizabeth's vanity was as insatiable as it was ludicrous. She issued
a proclamation forbidding any one to sell her picture, lest it should
fail to do her justice. She was greedy of flattery even when long
past sixty, and there was a sting of truth in the letter which Mary
Queen of Scots wrote her, saying, "Your aversion to marriage proceeds
from your not wishing to lose the liberty of compelling people to make
love to you."

387. Violence of Temper; Crooked Policy.

In temper Elizabeth was arbitrary, fickle, and passionate. When her
blood was up, she would swear like a trooper, spit on a courtier's new
velvet suit, beat her maids of honor, and box Essex's ears. She wrote
abusive and even profane letters to high Church dignitaries,[1] and
she openly insulted the wife of Archbishop Parker, because she did not
believe in a married clergy.

[1] For the famous letter to the bishop of Ely attributed to
Elizabeth, see Hallam's "Constitutional History of England," Froude,
or Creighton; but the "Dictionary of National Biography" ("Elizabeth")
calls it a forgery.

The age in which Elizabeth reigned was preeminently one of craft and
intrigue. The Kings of that day endeavored to get by fraud what their
less polished predecessors got by force. At this game of double
dealing Elizabeth had