A more auspicious scene opened for England in the accession of
ELIZABETH, a princess of great native vigor of mind, and who had been
much improved by adversity, having been kept in prison during the
whole reign of her sister. From the peculiar circumstances of
Elizabeth’s birth, her right of succession was denied by all the
Catholics at home and abroad. This party considered Mary, Queen of
Scots, who was descended from the eldest sister of Henry VIII, and had
been brought up in the Catholic faith at the court of France, as their
legitimate sovereign. Elizabeth had no support in any quarter, except
among her Protestant subjects. The Pope issued a bull, which directly
or indirectly, pronounced her a usurper, and gave permission to her
subjects to remove her from the throne. The court of France professed
to consider the Queen of Scots, who had recently been married to the
Dauphin, as the Queen of England. Under these circumstances, Elizabeth
found no chance of safety except in restoring and maintaining the
Protestant religion in her own country, and in seeking to support it
in all others where the people were favorable to it. The Scottish
nation being now engaged in a struggle with their regent, Mary of
Guise, in behalf of Protestantism, Elizabeth gladly acceded to a
proposal made by the nobles of that country, and sent a party of
troops, by whose assistance the reformed religion was established
(1560). In bringing about this change, the chief native leaders were
James Stuart, a natural son of King James V, and John Knox, who had
once been a friar, but was now a Protestant preacher. As a natural
consequence of the obligation which the English queen had conferred
upon the Scottish reformers, she acquired an influence over the
country which was never altogether lost.
About the time when the Scottish Parliament was establishing the
reformed religion, Mary of Guise breathed her last, leaving the
country to be managed by the reforming nobles. Her daughter, the Queen
of Scots, now eighteen years of age, and the most beautiful woman of
her time, had in 1559 become the queen-consort of France; but in
consequence of the death of her husband, she was next year left
without any political interest in that country. She accordingly, in
August 1561, returned to Scotland, and assumed the sovereignty of a
country which was chiefly under the rule of fierce nobles, and where
the people, from the difference of their religious faiths, as well as
their native barbarism, were little fitted to yield her the obedience
of loyal and loving subjects.
The change of religion in Scotland was of a more decisive kind than it
had been in England. The English Reformation had been effected by
sovereigns who, while they wished to throw off the supremacy of the
Pope, and some of the Catholic rites, desired to give as little way as
possible to popular principles. They therefore not only seized the
supremacy of the church to themselves, but, by bishops and other
dignitaries, made it an efficient instrument for supporting
monarchical government. In Scotland, where the Reformation was
effected by the nobles and the people, at a time when still bolder
principles had sprung up, none of this machinery of power was
retained. The clergy were placed on a footing of perfect equality;
they were all of them engaged in parochial duties, and only a small
part of the ancient ecclesiastical revenues was allowed to them. In
imitation of the system established at Geneva, their general affairs,
instead of being intrusted to the hands of bishops, were confided to
courts formed by themselves. These courts, being partly formed by lay
elders, kept up a sympathy and attachment among the community, which
has never existed in so great a degree in the English church. What was
of perhaps still greater importance, while a large part of the ancient
revenues was absorbed by the nobles, a very considerable portion was
devoted to the maintenance of parish schools, under the express
control of the clergy. These at once formed regular nurseries of
Protestant Christians, and disseminated the elements of learning more
extensively over this small and remote country than it had ever been
over any other part of the world.
Queen Mary, having little power in her own country, was obliged to
govern by means of her natural brother, James Stuart, whom she created
Earl of Moray, and who was the leader of the Protestant interest in
Scotland. Personally, however, she was intimately connected with the
great Catholic powers of the continent, and became a party, in 1564,
to a coalition formed by them for the suppression of Protestantism all
over Europe. She had never yet resigned her pretensions to the English
throne, but lived in the hope that, when the Catholics succeeded in
everywhere subduing the Protestants, she would attain that object.
Elizabeth, who had only the support of the Protestant part of her own
subjects, with a friendly feeling among the Scotch and other
unimportant Protestant nations, had great reason to dread the
confederacy formed against her. She nevertheless stood firm upon the
Protestant faith, and the principles of a comparatively liberal and
popular government, as the only safe position.
A series of unfortunate events threw Mary into the hands of Elizabeth.
The former queen, in 1565, married her cousin Lord Darnley, and by
that means alienated the affections of her brother and chief minister,
the Earl of Moray, as well as of other Protestant lords, who raised a
rebellion against her, and were obliged to fly into England. Soon
after, the jealousy of Darnley respecting an Italian musician named
Rizzio, who acted as French secretary to the queen, united him in a
conspiracy with the banished Protestant noblemen for the murder of
that humble foreigner, which was effected under very barbarous
circumstances, March 9, 1566. Mary, who was delivered in the
succeeding June, of her son James, withdrew her affections entirely
from her husband, and began to confide chiefly in the Earl of
Bothwell, who some months afterwards caused Darnley to be blown up by
gunpowder, while he lay in a state of sickness; in which transaction
it has always been suspected, but never proved, that the queen had a
considerable share. Bothwell soon after forced her, in appearance,
into a marriage, which excited so much indignation among her subjects,
that the same Protestant lords who had effected the Reformation, and
were the friends of Elizabeth, easily obtained the possession of her
person, and having deposed her, crowned her infant son as king, under
the title of JAMES VI, while the regency was vested in the Earl of
Moray. In May 1568, Mary escaped from her prison in Lochleven, and put
herself at the head of a body of her partisans, but was defeated by
the regent at the battle of Langside, and was then compelled to seek
refuge in England. By placing her rival under strict confinement, and
extending an effectual protection to the regents Moray, Lennox, Mar,
and Morton, who successively governed Scotland, Elizabeth fortified
herself in a great degree against the Catholic confederacy.