Sir Walter Raleigh and His Times | Page 8

of
countenance remarkable (I speak of those early days) rather for its
tenderness and intellectual depth than its strength, she comes forward
as the champion of the Reformed Faith, the interpretress of the will and
conscience of the people of England-- herself persecuted all but to the
death, and purified by affliction, like gold tried in the fire. She gathers
round her, one by one, young men of promise, and trains them herself
to their work. And they fulfil it, and serve her, and grow gray-headed in
her service, working as faithfully, as righteously, as patriotically, as
men ever worked on earth. They are her 'favourites'; because they are
men who deserve favour; men who count not their own lives dear to
themselves for the sake of the queen and of that commonweal which
their hearts and reasons tell them is one with her. They are still men,
though; and some of them have their grudgings and envyings against
each other: she keeps the balance even between them, on the whole,
skilfully, gently, justly, in spite of weaknesses and prejudices, without
which she had been more than human. Some have their conceited hopes
of marrying her, becoming her masters. She rebukes and pardons. 'Out
of the dust I took you, sir! go and do your duty, humbly and rationally,
henceforth, or into the dust I trample you again!' And they reconsider

themselves, and obey. But many, or most of them, are new men,
country gentlemen, and younger sons. She will follow her father's plan,
of keeping down the overgrown feudal princes, who, though brought
low by the wars of the Roses, are still strong enough to throw
everything into confusion by resisting at once the Crown and Commons.
Proud nobles reply by rebellion, come down southwards with ignorant
Popish henchmen at their backs; will restore Popery, marry the Queen
of Scots, make the middle class and the majority submit to the feudal
lords and the minority. Elizabeth, with her 'aristocracy of genius,' is too
strong for them: the people's heart is with her, and not with dukes. Each
mine only blows up its diggers; and there are many dry eyes at their
ruin. Her people ask her to marry. She answers gently, proudly,
eloquently: 'She is married--the people of England is her husband. She
has vowed it.' And yet there is a tone of sadness in that great speech.
Her woman's heart yearns after love, after children; after a strong
bosom on which to repose that weary head. More than once she is
ready to give way. But she knows that it must not be. She has her
reward. 'Whosoever gives up husband or child for my sake and the
gospel's, shall receive them back a hundredfold in this present life,' as
Elizabeth does. Her reward is an adoration from high and low, which is
to us now inexplicable, impossible, overstrained, which was not so
then.
For the whole nation is in a mood of exaltation; England is fairyland;
the times are the last days--strange, terrible, and glorious. At home are
Jesuits plotting; dark, crooked-pathed, going up and down in all manner
of disguises, doing the devil's work if men ever did it; trying to sow
discord between man and man, class and class; putting out books full of
filthy calumnies, declaring the queen illegitimate, excommunicate, a
usurper; English law null, and all state appointments void, by virtue of
a certain 'Bull'; and calling on the subjects to rebellion and
assassination, even on the bedchamber--woman to do to her 'as Judith
did to Holofernes.' She answers by calm contempt. Now and then
Burleigh and Walsingham catch some of the rogues, and they meet
their deserts; but she for the most part lets them have their way. God is
on her side, and she will not fear what man can do to her.
Abroad, the sky is dark and wild, and yet full of fantastic splendour.
Spain stands strong and awful, a rising world-tyranny, with its

dark-souled Cortezes and Pizarros, Alvas, Don Johns, and Parmas, men
whose path is like the lava stream; who go forth slaying and to slay, in
the name of their gods, like those old Assyrian conquerors on the walls
of Nineveh, with tutelary genii flying above their heads, mingled with
the eagles who trail the entrails of the slain. By conquest, intermarriage,
or intrigue, she has made all the southern nations her vassals or her
tools; close to our own shores, the Netherlands are struggling vainly for
their liberties; abroad, the Western Islands, and the whole trade of
Africa and India, will in a few years be hers. And already the Pope,
whose 'most Catholic' and faithful servant she is, has repaid her
services in the cause of darkness by the gift of the whole New World--a
gift