rwards day and night on the cushions with which it was
covered, in deep silence, her finger on her mouth: she rejected physic
with disdain.[294] Most said and believed she did not care to recover
or to live any longer, that she wished to die. When she was at last
got to bed, and had a moment left of consciousness and interest in the
world, she had the members of her Privy Council summoned: she then
either said to them directly that she held the King of Scotland to be
her lawful and deserving successor, or she designated him in a way
that left no doubt.[295]

Amidst the prayers of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was kneeling
by her bed, she breathed her last.

It is not merely the business of History to point out how far great
personages have attained the ideals which float before the mind of
man, or how far they have remained below them. It is almost more
important for it to ascertain how far the universal interests, in the
midst of which eminent characters appear, have been advanced by them,
whether their inborn force was a match for the opposing elements,
whether it allowed itself to be conquered by them or not. There never
was a sovereign who maintained a conflict of world-wide importance
amidst greater dangers and with greater success than Queen Elizabeth.
Her grandfather had begun a political emancipation from the ruling
influences of the continent, her father an ecclesiastical one:
Elizabeth took up their task and accomplished it victoriously against
Rome and against Spain, while her people had an ever-increasing part
in public affairs, and thus entered into a new stage of development.
Her memory is inseparably connected with the independence and power of
England.

NOTES:

[274] Elizabeth to James VI, August 1588, in Rymer and Bruce 53.

[275] Molino: 'Fu prudentissima nel governare diligente nel
consultare, perche voleva assistere a tutti li negotii,
perspicasissima nel provedere le cose ed accuratissima perche le
deliberationi fatte fossero eseguite.'

[276] One of her expressions was: 'He that placed her in that seat
would preserve her in it.' Contemporary notice in Ellis, Letters ii.
iii. 194.

[277] Hentzner, Itinerarium 137.

[278] De Maisse, in Prevost-Paradol, Memoire sur Elizabeth et Henri
IV. Seances et travaux de l'academie des sciences morales, tom. 34.

[279] Ockland, in Strype iii. 2, 237: 'Somni perparcus, parce vinique
cibique in mensa sumens, semper gravis atque modestus.'

[280] L