ch it was at each moment a question of existence for her. She was
assailed with all the weapons of war and of treason; but she adopted
corresponding means of defence against every assault: she not only
maintained herself, but created in the neighbouring countries a
powerful representation of the principle which she had taken up,
without pressing the adoption of a form for it exactly like her own.
Without her help the church-reformation in Scotland, and at that time
in France, would have been probably suppressed, and in the Netherlands
it would have never taken actual shape. The Queen is the champion of
West-European Protestantism and of all the political growth that was
attached to the new faith. She herself expresses her astonishment at
her success in this: 'more at the fact,' she says once, 'that I am
still alive, than that my enemies would not have me to live.' That
Philip effected so little against her, she believes to be due above
all to God's justice; for the King attacked her in an unkingly manner
while negociations were still going on: she sees in this a proof that
an ill beginning leads to a disgraceful end, despite all power and
endeavour. 'What was to ruin me, has turned to my glory.'[274]

It is surely the greatest happiness that can be granted to any human
being, while defending his own interest, to be maintaining the
interests of all. Then his personal existence expands into a central
part of the world's history.

That personal and universal interest was likewise a thoroughly English
one. Commerce grew amidst arms: the maintenance of internal peace
filled the country with wellbeing and riches; palaces were seen rising
where before only huts had stood: as the philosophic Bacon remarks,
England now won her natural position in the world.

Elizabeth was one of those sovereigns who have beforehand formed an
idea for themselves as to the duties of government. Four qualities,
she says once, seemed to her necessary for it: justice and
self-control, highmindedness and judgment; she might pride herself on
the two first: never in a case of equal rights had she favoured one
person more than another: never had she believed a first report, but
waited for fuller knowledge: the two others she would not claim for
herself, for they were men's virtues. But the world ascribed a high
degree of these very virtues to her. Men descried her subtle judgment
in the choice of her servants, and the directing them to the services
fo