ing the torment of burning, and his courage in dying, made all people love him as much as it made them hate the queen, and Gardiner, and Bonner.

Nothing did well in this cruel queen's reign. She went to war with France to please her husband the king of Spain, and in that war the French took Calais from the English, who had kept it ever since Edward III.'s reign.*

Queen Mary died the same year in which she lost Calais, after being queen only five years.

CHAPTER XLIV.

ELIZABETH.-1558 to 1603.

How Queen Elizabeth allowed the people to be Protestants; how they learned many useful things from foreigners who had been persecuted in their own country; how Mary Queen of Scots was driven from her kingdom, and was imprisoned, and at last beheaded, by Elizabeth.

QUEEN ELIZABETH's reign was so very long, and there are so many things to tell you about in it, that I am sure we must have three chapters about her, and you will find both good and bad in them; but after all, you will think that her being queen was a very good thing for England.

When Queen Mary died, Elizabeth was at Hatfield, where she stayed a little while, till some of the great and wise men belonging to the country went to her to advise her what she had best do for the good of England, and how she should begin.

*Little Arthur should look back, and read the story of the taking of Calais, and of the good Eustace de St. Pierre.

She was twenty-five years old, and very pleasant looking. She was a good scholar in Latin, Greek, Italian, and some other languages; but above all, she loved English.

The first thing Elizabeth and her wise counsellors did was to set free all the poor Protestants whom Queen Mary and Bishop Bonner had put in prison, and intended to burn. Then she allowed the Bible and prayers to be read in English, and appointed the Protestant clergyman, Parker, to be Archbishop of Canterbury; and having pleased the people and the gentlemen very much by these good things, she thought it time to go to London to have the crown set on her head, and so to be made Queen of England.

The citizens of London made all sorts of fine shows to do honour to a queen who had already been so good to the poor Protestants. They hung beautiful silks and satins out at the windows like flags; they built fine wooden arches across the streets, which they dressed up with branches of trees and flowers; and just as the queen was riding under one of them, a boy beautifully dressed was let down by cords from the top, who gave the queen a beautiful Bible, and then he was drawn up again. Elizabeth took the Bible and kissed it, and pressed it to her bosom, and said it was a present she liked best of all the fine things the people had given her that day.

Queen Elizabeth did not find it very easy to undo all the mischief that Queen Mary had done; but at last, with the help of her good counsellors, England was at peace, and the people were settled, some on their lands, where they were beginning to sow more corn and make more gardens than they had done before, and some in different trades; for the English

learned to make a great many things at this time from strangers that came to live here.

I will tell you why they came. That cruel Philip II., King of Spain, who had been married to Queen Mary, was King over Flanders and Holland, as well as Spain. A great many of the people in those countries were Protestants: but Philip wanted to make them Papists by force, and would have burnt them as Queen Mary did the Protestants in England. But they got away from him, and hearing that Queen Elizabeth was a friend to the Protestants, they came here. And as some of them were spinners and weavers, and others dyers, and so on, they began to work at their trades, and taught them to the English. Since that time we have always been able to make woollen and linen cloth ourselves.

So you see that King Philip, by being cruel, drove away useful people from his country, and Queen Elizabeth, by being kind and just, got those useful people to do good to our own dear England.

I must tell you a sad story of the worst thing that happened in Queen Elizabeth's time, in this chapter, because it had a great deal to do with the Protestants and Papists.

In the chapter about Edward VI. you read that there was a beautiful young Queen of Scotland, and that the English wished King Edward to marry her; but that she went to France, and married the young French king instead.

She was so very young when she first went, that her husband's mother kept her to teach along with her own little girls till she was old enough to be married; and I am sorry to say that she taught her to be cunning, and deceitful, and cruel.

Her name was Mary, and she was the most beau

tiful young queen in the world; and the old French queen, whose name was Catherine, taught her to love dress, and shows, and dancing, more than anything, although she was so clever that she might have learned all the good things that the beautiful Lady Jane Grey had learned.

The young King of France died very soon, and then Mary, who is always called Queen of Scots, went home to Scotland. If she had been wise, she might have done as much good as her cousin Queen Elizabeth did in England.

But she had been too long living in gaiety and amusement in France, to know what was best for her people; and instead of listening to wise counsellors, as Elizabeth did, she would take advice from nobody but Frenchmen, or others who would dance and sing, instead of minding serious things.

When she went away from Scotland all the people were Papists; but long before she got back, not only the people, but most of the great lords, were Protestants; and Mary was very much vexed, and tried to persuade them all to turn Papists again.

At last, there was a civil war in Scotland, between the Papists and Protestants, which did much mischief: at the end of it, the Protestants promised Mary to let her be a Papist, and have Papist clergymen for herself, and the lords and ladies belonging to her house; and she promised that her children should be Protestants, and taught what the people pleased.

Just before this war Mary had married her cousin, Henry Stuart, called Lord Darnley, who was very handsome; and she liked him very much indeed for a little time, and they had a son called James. But soon afterwards Mary was very much offended with Darnley, and took it into her head that she would

rather have Lord Bothwell for her husband; and she had learned to be so wicked and cruel while she was in France, that she ordered some people to go and murder her husband Darnley, while she gave a ball in her palace, and was dancing merrily.

Lord Bothwell helped to murder Darnley, and all the people knew it; so you cannot wonder that most of those who were good were very angry indeed when they found that she chose to marry that wicked man four months after he had killed her poor husband.

Then there was another terrible civil war, and Mary was put into prison in Loch Leven Castle, which stands on a little island in the middle of a lake. However, by the help of one of her friends she got out, and once more got her Papist advisers round her, who tried to make her queen again.

But the Scots would not allow it, and they made her little infant James their king, and made the lords Murray and Morton, and some others, guardians for the little king and the kingdom.

It would have been well for Queen Mary if she would have lived in Scotland quietly, and taken care of her little son herself. But her bad husband, Bothwell, had run away to save his own life, and Mary Queen of Scots chose to come to England, in hopes that Queen Elizabeth, her cousin, would help her to get the kingdom of Scotland again.

I cannot tell you all the things that happened to Mary Queen of Scots in England. But I must say that I wish she had never come. She first of all seemed to want to make friends with Elizabeth, but all the time she was sending letters to the kings of France and Spain, to ask them to help her to get not only Scotland, but England for herself, and she promised one of the great English lords she would