his arts as well as by his
arms.

During these years, while Europe was almost every where in great
commotion, England enjoyed a profound tranquillity; owing chiefly to
the prudence and vigor of the queen's administration, and to the wise
precautions which she employed in all her measures. By supporting
the zealous Protestants in Scotland, she had twice given them the
superiority over their antagonists, had closely connected their
interests with her own, and had procured herself entire security from
that quarter whence the most dangerous invasions could be made upon her.
She saw in France her enemies, the Guises, though extremely powerful,
yet counterbalanced by the Hugo*nots, her zealous partisans, and even
hated by the king, who was jealous of their restless and exorbitant
ambition. The bigotry of Philip gave her just ground of anxiety; but the
same bigotry had happily excited the most obstinate opposition among his
own subjects, and had created him enemies whom his arms and policy were
not likely soon to subdue. The queen of Scots, her antagonist and rival,
and the pretender to her throne, was a prisoner in her hands; and, by
her impatience and high spirit, had been engaged in practices which
afforded the queen a pretence for rendering her confinement more
rigorous, and for cutting off her communication with her partisans in
England.

Religion was the capital point on which depended all the political
transactions of that age; and the queen's conduct in this particular,
making allowance for the prevailing prejudices of the times, could
scarcely be accused of severity or imprudence. She established no
inquisition into men's bosoms; she imposed no oath of supremacy, except
on those who received trust or emolument from the public; and though
the exercise of every religion but the established was prohibited by
statute, the violation of this law, by saying mass, and receiving the
sacrament, in private houses, was in many instances connived at;[*]
while, on the other hand, the Catholics, in the beginning of her reign,
showed little reluctance against going to church, or frequenting the
ordinary duties of public worship. The pope, sensible that this practice
would by degrees reconcile all his partisans to the reformed religion,
hastened the publication of the bull which excommunicated the queen, and
freed her subjects from their oaths of allegiance; and great pains were
taken by the emissaries of Rome, to render the breach