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King Elizabeth
KingHenry VIII had two daughters.
One was named Mary, and one was named Elizabeth.
Their last name was of course Tudor, the same as their father’s, although we do not usually think of kings and queens as having last names.
King Henry had a son, also, and he was first to become king after his father died, for though he was younger than his sisters, a boy was supposed to be more fit to rule than a girl. But he didn’t live long, and then Mary was the first of the two sisters to become queen.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary” did not approve what her father had done when he turned against the pope and the Catholic Church. Mary herself was a strong Catholic and ready to fight for the pope and the Catholic Church. In fact, she wanted to have all who were not Catholics, all those who were Protestants, put to death. She thought that all those who did not believe as she did were wicked and shouldbe killed. Like the queen in “Alice in Wonderland,” she was always saying, “Off with his head!” This seems to us very unchristian, but in those days their ideas about such things were peculiar. Mary had the heads of so many people cut off that she was called Bloody Mary.
Mary married a man who was just as strong a Catholic as she and even “bloodier.” He was not an Englishman, but a Spaniard, Philip II of Spain, son of Charles V, who had abdicated.
Philip II was much sterner than his father had been. Philip tried to make those who were Protestants, or who were supposed to be Protestants, confess and give up Protestantism. If they did not do so, they were tortured as the old Christian martyrs had been tortured. This was called the Inquisition. Those suspected of being Protestants were tormented in all sorts of horrible ways. Some were tied up in the air by their hands, like a picture hung on the wall, until they fainted from the pain or else confessed what they were told to confess. Some were stretched on a rack, their heads pulled one way and their legs the opposite way, until their bodies were nearly torn apart. Those who were found guilty of being Protestants were killed outright, burned to death, or put slowly to death, so that they would suffer longer.
The people whom Philip chiefly persecutedwere the Dutch people in Holland. Holland then belonged to his empire, and a great many of the Dutch people had become Protestants.
Now, there was a Dutchman called William the Silent, because he talked little but did a great deal. William was furious at the way his people were treated. So he fought against Philip and at last succeeded in making his country free and setting up the Dutch Republic. But William the Silent was murdered by order of Philip.
And that’s the kind of man Bloody Mary had for a husband.
After Mary Tudor died, her sister, Elizabeth Tudor, became queen, though she ruled like a king. Elizabeth had red hair and was very vain and loved to be flattered. She had many lovers but she never married, and as a woman who never marries is called a virgin she was known as the Virgin Queen.
Elizabeth was a Protestant and was just as bitter against the Catholics as her sister and her sister’s husband had been against the Protestants.
A relative of Elizabeth was queen of Scotland. Scotland was a country north of England, but at that time it was not a part of England, and its queen was named Mary Stuart.Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was young, beautiful, and fascinating; but she was a Catholic, and so Elizabeth and she were enemies.
Elizabeth heard that Mary Stuart was trying to become queen of England as well as Scotland, so she had her, although a relative, put in prison. In prison Mary Stuart stayed for nearly twenty years and was then at last put to death by Elizabeth’s orders. It is hard for us to understand how any one could have his own relatives killed in this cold-blooded way, especially any one who pretended to be a Christian, but in those times it was a very common custom, as we see when we hear of so many murders committed by the rulers of the people. Philip II, the great champion of the Catholics, made up his mind to punish Elizabeth, his sister-in-law, for killing such a good Catholic as Mary Stuart.
So he got together a large navy of very fine ships called the Spanish Armada. All Spain was very proud of this fleet. It was boastfully called the Invincible Armada; “invincible” means “unconquerable.”
This Invincible Armada set forth in 1588 to conquer the English navy. Lined up in the shape of a half-moon, the ships sailed grandly toward England.
The English fleet was composed only of little boats. But instead of going out to meet theArmada in regular sea-battle as the Spaniards expected, the English ships sailed out and attacked the Spanish ships from behind and fought one ship at a time. The English were better fighters, and their small boats were quicker and more easily managed. They could strike a blow and get away before a Spanish ship could turn around into position to fire. So gradually they sank or destroyed the big Spanish boats one by one.
Then the English set some old boats afire and started them drifting toward the Spanish fleet. As all boats at that time were of course made of wood, the Spaniards became frightened at these burning piles drifting down upon them, and part of the fleet sailed away. The rest tried to get back to Spain by sailing the long way round, north of Scotland. But a terrible storm struck them, and almost all the boats were shipwrecked, and thousands of dead bodies were washed up on shore. So the great Spanish Armada was destroyed, and with it ended the power of Spain at sea. She was no longer the great nation she had been.
At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, the largest and most powerful country in the world was Spain; at the end of her reign it was England that was the most powerful. Ever since then her fleet, which King Alfred startedfar back, has been the largest, and the saying is, “Britannia rules the waves.”
People at that time thought it impossible for a woman to rule as well as a man, but under Elizabeth’s rule England in turn became the leading country of Europe. Then people said Elizabeth ruledlikea man, that she had a man’s brain, a man’s will. In fact they said she was more man than woman—that she was a tomboy grown up—that’s why I call her “King Elizabeth.”