Commandments to be used in English. But
months passed after her accession before she would go further than this.
A royal proclamation which ordered the existing form of worship to be
observed "till consultation might be had in Parliament by the Queen and
the Three Estates" startled the prelates; and only one bishop could be
found to assist at the coronation of Elizabeth. But no change was made
in the ceremonies of the coronation; the Queen took the customary oath
to observe the liberties of the Church, and conformed to the Catholic
ritual. There was little in fact to excite any reasonable alarm among
the adherents of the older faith, or any reasonable hope among the
adherents of the new. "I will do," the Queen said, "as my father did."
Instead of the reforms of Edward and the Protectorate, the Protestants
saw themselves thrown back on the reforms of Henry the Eighth. Even
Henry's system indeed seemed too extreme for Elizabeth. Her father had
at any rate broken boldly from the Papacy. But the first work of the
Queen was to open negotiations for her recognition with the Papal Court.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth and Philip.]

What shaped Elizabeth's course in fact was hard necessity. She found
herself at war with France and Scotland, and her throne threatened by
the claim of the girl who linked the two countries, the claim of Mary
Stuart, at once Queen of Scotland and wife of the Dauphin Francis. On
Elizabeth's accession Mary and Francis assumed by the French king's
order the arms and style of English sovereigns: and if war continued it
was clear that their pretensions would be backed by Henry's forces as
well as by the efforts of the Scots. Against such a danger Philip of
Spain was Elizabeth's only ally. Philip's policy was at this time a
purely conservative one. The vast schemes of ambition which had so often
knit both Pope and Protestants, Germany and France, against his father
were set aside by the young king. His position indeed was very different
from that of Charles the Fifth. He was not Emperor. He had little weight
in Germany. Even in Italy his influence was less than his father's. He
had lost with Mary's death the crown of England. His most valuable
possessions outside Spain, the provinces of the Netherlands, were
disaffected to a foreign rule. All the king therefore aimed at was to
keep his own. But the Netherlands were hard to keep: and with France
mistress of England as of Scotland, and so mistress of the Channel, to