THE GREATEST OF LITERARY PROBLEM'S I THE SETTING OF THE STAGE THE ELIZABETHAN AGE THE reign of Elizabeth is one of the strikingly picturesque pages of history. The last of the Tudors, that family of royal despots who had ruled England with a heavy hand for eightythree years, she came to the throne, we might well say by chance, if we regarded only the letter of history, and overlooked its Providential aspects, when the English people were yet striving to emerge from barbarity. This is instanced by the deplorable condition of society as disclosed by the annals of the time. The reigns of Henry VIII and of his elder daughter, who by her harsh rule earned the title of "Bloody Mary,” have been pictured grimly in English annals, while the reign of his younger daughter, Elizabeth, who had inherited the few better traits of her father, as well as most of his numerous bad ones, has been colored too brightly by writers who have been dazzled by its brilliancy. Her family had come to reign in England as conquerors, and their ideal of government was the mailed hand and the supple knee. All the conditions existing at their advent favored despotic rule. With an ignorant and turbulent populace, no other seemed possible, and it soon became more oppressive than autocratic rule in Russia has been within the past century. The nobility monopolized the wealth and power of the realm, though the more numerous THE GREATEST OF LITERARY PROBLEMS I THE SETTING OF THE STAGE THE ELIZABETHAN AGE THE reign of Elizabeth is one of the strikingly picturesque pages of history. The last of the Tudors, that family of royal despots who had ruled England with a heavy hand for eightythree years, she came to the throne, we might well say by chance, if we regarded only the letter of history, and overlooked its Providential aspects, when the English people were yet striving to emerge from barbarity. This is instanced by the deplorable condition of society as disclosed by the annals of the time. The reigns of Henry VIII and of his elder daughter, who by her harsh rule earned the title of "Bloody Mary," have been pictured grimly in English annals, while the reign of his younger daughter, Elizabeth, who had inherited the few better traits of her father, as well as most of his numerous bad ones, has been colored too brightly by writers who have been dazzled by its brilliancy. Her family had come to reign in England as conquerors, and their ideal of government was the mailed hand and the supple knee. All the conditions existing at their advent favored despotic rule. With an ignorant and turbulent populace, no other seemed possible, and it soon became more oppressive than autocratic rule in Russia has been within the past century. The nobility monopolized the wealth and power of the realm, though the more numerous destroyed, but could not be discovered whose it was, only the report of the midwife who was brought from her house blindfold thither, and so returned, saw nothing in the house while she was there but a candle light, only she said it was the child of a very fair young lady.1 It seems that a clandestine marriage was planned, "her governess was bribed, her own affections were won," when it was realized that Elizabeth by such a marriage would forfeit her right to the succession. Parliament was therefore applied to. Elizabeth in a letter to the protector informed him of Seymour's proposal of marriage, and to a report that she was pregnant declared it to be "a shameful schandler." There is much more on this unsavory subject, but we have already quoted too much. . In the summer of 1554, for supposed sympathy with the claims of Lady Jane Grey to the throne, she was thrown into the Tower, that gateway to the block, with Robert Dudley, whom she had known from childhood, and to whom she had shown marked favor at her brother's court. He was noted for his fascinating personality, and she would have been only too glad to marry him had he not been encumbered with a wife whom history affirms he subsequently disposed of in the hope of such a consummation; indeed, immediately following his wife's death, Elizabeth announced her intention of so doing, which prompted the Queen of Scots to declare that — “The Queen of England was about to marry her horse-keeper [he was master of horse], who had killed his wife to make a place for her." 2 After a life so disheartening as Elizabeth's had been, to be suddenly and unexpectedly elevated to almost unlimited power was an event which must have seemed to her miraculous, as it did to her friends. The kingdom at the time was menaced by dangers from all 1 The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, p. 83. London, 1887. 2 James Anthony Froude, M.A., History of England, vol. vII, p. 303. New York, 1867. |