e great
Queen herself, the Cecils, Raleigh, Walsingham, Drake, Hawkins, Gilbert,
Howard, Willoughby, the Norrises, Essex, Leicester, Sidney, Spenser,
Shakspeare and the lesser but brilliant lights which surrounded him; such
were the men who lifted England upon an elevation to which she was not
yet entitled by her material grandeur. At last she had done with Rome,
and her expansion dated from that moment.

Holland and England, by the very condition of their existence, were sworn
foes to Philip. Elizabeth stood excommunicated of the Pope. There was
hardly a month in which intelligence was not sent by English agents out
of the Netherlands and France, that assassins, hired by Philip, were
making their way to England to attempt the life of the Queen. The
Netherlanders were rebels to the Spanish monarch, and they stood, one and
all, under death-sentence by Rome. The alliance was inevitable and
wholesome. Elizabeth was, however, consistently opposed to the acceptance
of a new sovereignty. England was a weak power. Ireland was at her side
in a state of chronic rebellion--a stepping-stone for Spain in its
already foreshadowed invasion. Scotland was at her back with a strong
party of Catholics, stipendiaries of Philip, encouraged by the Guises and
periodically inflamed to enthusiasm by the hope of rescuing Mary Stuart
from her imprisonment, bringing her rival's head to the block, and
elevating the long-suffering martyr upon the throne of all the British
Islands. And in the midst of England itself, conspiracies were weaving
every day. The mortal duel between the two queens was slowly approaching
its termination. In the fatal form of Mary was embodied everything most
perilous to England's glory and to England's Queen. Mary Stuart meant
absolutism at home, subjection to Rome and Spain abroad. The uncle Guises
were stipendiaries of Philip, Philip was the slave of the Pope. Mucio had
frightened the unlucky Henry III. into submission, and there was no
health nor hope in France. For England, Mary Stuart embodied the possible
relapse into sloth, dependence, barbarism. For Elizabeth, Mary Stuart
embodied sedition, conspiracy, rebellion, battle, murder, and sudden
death.

It was not to be wondered at that the Queen thus situated should be
cautious, when about throwing down the gauntlet to the greatest powers of
the earth. Yet the commissioners from the United States were now on their
way to England to propose the throwing of that gauntlet