This fact, once known, throws a new light over her conduct; the ambiguous expressions which she constantly employs, when she alludes to her marriage in her speeches, and in private conversations, are no longer mysterious.  She was always declaring, that she knew her subjects did not love her so little, as to wish to bury her before her time; even in the letter I shall now give, we find this remarkable expression:—­urging her to marriage, she said, was “asking nothing less than wishing her to dig her grave before she was dead.”  Conscious of the danger of her life by marriage, she had early declared when she ascended the throne, that “she would live and die a maiden queen:”  but she afterwards discovered the political evil resulting from her unfortunate situation.  Her conduct was admirable; her great genius turned even her weakness into strength, and proved how well she deserved the character which she had already obtained from an enlightened enemy—­the great Sixtus V., who observed of her, Ch’era un gran cervello di Principessa!  She had a princely head-piece!  Elizabeth allowed her ministers to pledge her royal word to the commons, as often as they found necessary, for her resolution to marry; she kept all Europe at her feet, with the hopes and fears of her choice; she gave ready encouragements, perhaps allowed her agents to promote even invitations, to the offers of marriage she received from crowned heads; and all the coquetries and cajolings, so often and so fully recorded, with which she freely honoured individuals, made her empire an empire of love, where love, however, could never appear.  All these were merely political artifices, to conceal her secret resolution, which was, not to marry.

At the birth of James I. as Camden says, “the sharp and hot spirits broke out, accusing the queen that she was neglecting her country and posterity.”  All “these humours,” observes Hume, “broke out with great vehemence, in a new session of parliament, held after six prorogations.”  The peers united with the commoners.  The queen had an empty exchequer, and was at their mercy.  It was a moment of high ferment.  Some of the boldest, and some of the most British spirits were at work; and they, with the malice or wisdom of opposition, combined the supply with the succession; one was not to be had without the other.

This was a moment of great hope and anxiety with the French court; they were flattering themselves that her reign was touching a crisis; and La Mothe Fenelon, then the French ambassador at the court of Elizabeth, appears to have been busied in collecting hourly information of the warm debates in the commons, and what passed in their interviews with the queen.  We may rather be astonished where he procured so much secret intelligence:  he sometimes complains that he is not able to acquire it as fast as Catherine de Medicis and her son Charles IX. wished.  There must have been Englishmen at our court who were serving as French spies.  In