by her with laws and lives and goods.

There was no

help elsewhere. The Germans used fine words, but they failed at the pinch. The Emperor had been gained over by the Pope. Their reliance must be on themselves and their own arms, and nowhere else.

After Cecil, rose Sir Francis Knowles, who said that there had been enough of words: it was time to draw the sword. The Commons were generally Puritan. The opposition of the Lords had been neutralized by a special provision in their favour, and the Bill was carried. The obligation to take the oath was extended to the holder of every office, lay or spiritual, in the realm. The clergy were required to swear whenever their ordinary might be pleased to tender them the oath; the members of the House of Commons were required to swear when they took their seats; members of the Upper House were alone exempt, the Act declaring, with perhaps designed irony, that the Queen was otherwise assured of the loyalty of the Peers. Without this proviso de Quadra was assured that they would have refused to consent; and even with it he clung to the hope that the Catholic noblemen would be true to themselves. But he was too sanguine, and Cecil carried his point.

Heath, Bonner, Thirlby, Feckenham, and the other prisoners at once prepared to die. The Protestant ecclesiastics would as little spare them as they had spared the Protestants. They would have shown no mercy themselves, and they looked for none.

1 5 Elizabeth, cap. I.

Nor is there any doubt what their fate would have been had it rested with the English bishops. Immediately after the Bill had received the royal assent, the hated Bonner was sent for to be the first victim. Horne, Bishop of Winchester, offered him the oath, which it was thought certain that he would refuse, and he would then be at the mercy of his enemies. Had it been so the English Church would have disgraced itself; but Bonner's fate would have called for little pity. The law however stepped in between the prelates and their prey -as Portia between Shylock and Antonio-and saved them both. By the Act archbishops and bishops might alone tender the oath; and Bonner evaded the dilemma by challenging his questioner's title to the name. When Horne was appointed to the See of Winchester his predecessor was alive; the English bishops generally had been so irregularly consecrated that their authority, until confirmed by Act of Parliament, was of doubtful legality; and the judges of the Court of Queen's Bench caught at the plea to prevent a needless cruelty. Bonner was again returned to the Marshalsea, and Horne gained nothing by his eagerness but a stigma upon himself and his brethren.1

The remaining business of the session passed over without difficulty: the grant of money was profusely liberal; 2 an Act was passed for the maintenance of the navy, which will be mentioned more particularly in a

1 Annals of the Reformation: | personal property, and an income STRYPE, vol. i. part 2, pp. 2 to 8. tax of ten per cent. for two years.

2 Two fifteenths and tenths on

future chapter; a tillage Act revived the statutes of Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth for the rebuilding of farm-houses and breaking up the large pastures.1 The restoration of the currency made a wages Act again possible, but the altered prices of meat and corn required a revision of the scale. The magistrates in the different counties were empowered to fix the rate according to the local prices, their awards being liable to revision by the Court of Chancery, to which returns. were to be periodically made. Other remarkable provisions were added to restore the shaken texture of English life. During the late confused time the labourer had wandered from place to place doing a day's work where he pleased. Masters were now required to hire their servants by the year, neither master to part with servant nor servant with master till the contract was expired, unless the separation was sanctioned by two magistrates.

These acts all indicated a recovered or recovering tone. The solid English life, after twenty years of convulsion, was regaining consistency.

15 Elizabeth, cap. 2.

2

5 Elizabeth, cap. 4. Wages varied with the time of year, and the rates were read out every month in the parish churches. The average in 1563 may be gathered with tolerable accuracy from the scale which was ruled for the county of Bucks before the passing of the Act. The price of food after the restoration of the currency was found to have risen a third. The penny, which in terms

of bread, meat, and beer, had been worth under Henry the Eighth twelve pence of our money, was now worth eight pence. The table of wages in Bucks in 1561 was for the common labourer sixpence a day from Easter to All Hallows; five pence a day from All Hallows to Easter; and eight pence a day in the hay and corn harvest.-Tyldsley's Report: Domestic MSS., vol. xix.

The well-being of the people however turned on the success of Elizabeth's policy, and hung on the thread of her single life; while neither Lords nor Commons had as yet received an answer to their addresses. On the 16th of February she sent a message by Cecil that she had not forgotten them, and entreating their patience : but ten days passed and nothing was done; and by that time Maitland had arrived from Scotland with an offer from his mistress-of course as a condition of recognition-to make herself 'a moyenneur of a peace' with France, which would give back Calais to England. There was a hope that by such an offer even the unwillingness of Parliament might be overcome; and Maitland was prudently feeling his way when one of those strange adventures occurred which so often crossed the path of the Queen of Scots, and gave her history the interest-not perhaps of tragedy, for she was selfish in her politics and sensual in her passions-but of some high-wrought melodrama.

In the galley in which she returned to Scotland there was present a young poet and musician named Châtelar. Gifted, well-born, and passionate, the handsome youth had for some months sighed at her feet in Holyrood. He went back to France, but he could not remain there. The moth was recalled to the flame whose warmth was life and death to it. He was received on his return with the warmest welcome. Mary Stuart admitted him to her labours in the Cabinet, and he shared her pleasures in the festival or the dance. 'So familiar was he

with the Queen early and late that scarcely could any

2

1

of the nobility have access to her.' She leant upon his shoulder in public, she bewitched him in private with her fascinating confidence; and interpreting her behaviour and perhaps her words too favourably, he one night concealed himself in her bedroom. He was discovered by the ladies of the bedchamber before the Queen retired; and the next morning she commanded him with a sharp reprimand to leave the Court. But Mary Stuart pardoned easily the faults of those whom she liked. Châtelar was forgiven, and again misconstruing her kindness, four nights later the poor youth repeated his rash adventure. He came out upon the Queen while she was undressing, and 'set upon her with such force and in such impudent sort that she was fain to cry out for help.'

Hearing her shrieks Murray rushed into the room. Châtelar was of course seized and carried off and tortured. Confessing the worst intentions with wild bravado, he was executed a week after in the Market Place at St Andrew's, chanting a love-song as he died; and the Queen after some natural distress recovered her spirits.

1 KNOX.

showeth unto so unworthy a creature and abject a varlet, as her Grace used with him. Whatsoever colour can be laid upon it, that it was done for his master's sake (Châtelar had been in the train of M. d'Amville), I

2 Randolph, who was describing what he had himself seen, said in a letter to Cecil, 'Your Honour heareth the beginning of a lamentable story, whereof such infamy will arise as I fear, howsoever well the wound be cannot but say it had been too healed, the scar will for ever remain. much to have been used to his Thus your Honour seeth what master's self by any princess alive.' mischief cometh of the over-great-Scotch MSS. Rolls House. familiarity that any such personage