ter
word would be fanatic. 'Her enemies were wrong about her character,'
says Chesterton. 'She was in a limited sense a good woman.' If
Chesterton means she was a good Catholic he is right, if the burning of
heretics is a good thing for a Christian Church. But the fortunate part
of the whole affair was that not even burning could restore the power of
the Papacy in England in Mary's time any more than the arrogance of the
Roman Catholics to-day can restore the Pope to London and unfrock the
Archbishop of Canterbury. Mary was a sincere fanatic, and like most
fanatics was an extremely ignorant woman; consequently she could not see
that the fire that burnt Cranmer also burnt the last hope of England
bowing to the Pope of Rome. I cannot feel that Chesterton has in the
least vindicated the character of Mary.

Historians are apt to think that the days of Queen Elizabeth were those
in which England first realized that she was great. On the other hand,
Chesterton is convinced that it is in this period that 'she first
realized that she was small.' The business of the Armada was to her what
Bannockburn was to the Scots, or Majuba to the Boers--a victory that
astonished the victors. The fact of the matter was that Spain realized
after the battle that the victory does not always go to the big
battalions, which the present Kaiser is no doubt writing in his
'Imperial' copybook to-day.

The 'magnificance of the Elizabethan times has traces in mediaeval times
and far fewer traces in modern times.' 'Her critics indeed might
reasonably say that in replacing the Virgin Mary by the Virgin Queen,
the English reformers merely exchanged a true virgin for a false one.'
If Elizabeth was crafty it was because it was good she should be so. If
she had not been so, the history of England might have found Philip of
Spain on the English throne and Mary Queen of Scots a worse menace in
England, a menace that by the skill of Elizabeth developed into a
headless corpse. Had Elizabeth had a different historical background,
she might have been a different Queen; but, as it was, she dealt with it
as only a genius could who had followed a maniacal Queen who failed in
everything she did.

From the times of Elizabeth, Chesterton moves on to the age of the
Puritans, those rather dull people who have always been the byword for
those who are more popularly known as Prigs. 'The Puritans were
primarily enthusiastic for what they thought was pure religion. Their