and were not without apprehension of an attempt at invasion
from France. The decision however followed without any commotion and
on the spot. Though most of its members were Catholic, the Privy
Council did not hesitate. A few hours after Mary's decease the Commons
were summoned to the Upper House, to receive a communication there: it
was, that Mary was dead, and that God had given them another Queen, My
lady Elizabeth. The Parliament dissolved; the new Queen was proclaimed
in Westminster and in London. Some days afterwards she made her entry
into the capital amidst the indescribable rejoicings of the people,
who greeted her accession as their deliverance and their salvation.

But if this, as we see, involved in its very essence a hostile
attitude towards France and Scotland, on the other hand the question
was at once laid before the Queen, and in the most personal way
imaginable, how far she would unite herself with Spain, the great
Power which was now on her side. Philip resolved, inasmuch as
propriety in some measure allowed it, to ask for her hand--not indeed
from personal inclination, of which there is no trace, but from policy
and perhaps from religion: he hoped by this means to keep England firm
to the Spanish alliance and to Catholicism.[182] And on the English
side also much might be said for it. An ally was needed against
France, even to obtain a tolerable peace: there was some danger that
Philip, if rejected by the Queen, might perhaps marry a French
princess; to be secure against the French claims the Queen seemed to
need the support of Spain. Her first answer was not in the negative.
She declared she must consult with Parliament as to the King's
proposal: but he might be assured that, if she ever married, she would
not give any one else the preference over him.

Well considered, these words announce at once her resolution not to
marry. Between Mary Tudor who thought to bring the crown to the heir
of Spain, and Mary Stuart similarly pledged to the heir of France,
nothing was left for her--since she would not wish the husband of her
choice to be of inferior rank--but to remain unmarried. From
listening to Philip's wooing she was kept back by her sister's
example, whose marriage had destroyed her popularity. And for
Elizabeth there would have been yet another danger in this alliance.
Was not her legitimacy dependent on the invalidity of her father's
marriage with his brother's widow? It would be a very simila