ed by stern
measures to prevent the circulation of such incentives to revolt.
"Whereas divers books" ran a royal proclamation, "filled with heresy,
sedition, and treason, have of late and be daily brought into the realm
out of foreign countries and places beyond seas, and some also covertly
printed within this realm and cast abroad in sundry parts thereof,
whereby not only God is dishonoured but also encouragement is given to
disobey lawful princes and governors," any person possessing such books
"shall be reported and taken for a rebel, and shall without delay be
executed for that offence according to the order of martial law." But
what really robbed these pamphlets of all force for harm was the
prudence and foresight of the people itself. Never indeed did the nation
show its patient good sense more clearly than in the later years of
Mary's reign. While fires blazed in Smithfield and news of defeat came
from over sea, while the hot voices of Protestant zealots hounded men on
to assassination and revolt, the bulk of Englishmen looked quietly from
the dying Queen to the girl who in a little while must wear her crown.
What nerved men to endure the shame and bloodshed about them was the
certainty of the speedy succession of the daughter of Anne Boleyn.
Elizabeth was now in her twenty-fifth year. Personally she had much of
her mother's charm with more than her mother's beauty. Her figure was
commanding, her face long but queenly and intelligent, her eyes quick
and fine. She had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a
bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, and
an accomplished scholar. Even among the highly-trained women who caught
the impulse of the New Learning she stood in the extent of her
acquirements without a peer. Ascham, who succeeded Grindal and Cheke in
the direction of her studies, tells us how keen and resolute was
Elizabeth's love of learning, even in her girlhood. At sixteen she
already showed "a man's power of application" to her books. She had read
almost the whole of Cicero and a great part of Livy. She began the day
with the study of the New Testament in Greek, and followed this up by
reading selected orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles.
She could speak Latin with fluency and Greek moderately well. Her love
of classical culture lasted through her life. Amidst the press and cares
of her later reign we find Ascham recording how "after dinner I went u