by making
Essex give the ring to a boy passing by, who was to give it, not to
the Countess of Nottingham, but to her sister, and then mistook the
two ladies.

[293] Scaramelli, 27 March: 'per occasione del perdono finalmente
fatto al conte di Tirone cadde in una consideratione, che il conte di
Esses gia tanto suo intimo di cuore fosse morto innocente.'

[294] Letter of the French ambassador from London, 3rd April 1603.
'C'est la verite que delors, qu'elle se sentit atteinte du mal, elle
dit de vouloir mourir.' Villeroy, Memoires d'estat iii. 212. Cary:
'The Queen grew worse and worse, because she would be so.' Compare
Sloane MS. in Ellis iii. 194.

[295] Scaramelli writes to his Signoria 7th April (New Style) what was
said during those days: 'La regina nel fine della infirmita et della
vita dopo haver dormito alcune poche hore ritornata di sana mente
conoscendosi moribonda il primo di Aprile corr. fece chiamare i
signori del regio consiglio--e commandava loro,--che la corona
pervenisse al Piu meritevole ch'ella ha trovato sempre nel suo secreto
esser il Re di Scotia cosi per il dritto della successione, che per
esserne Piu degno che non e stata lei, poiche egli e nato re et ella
privata--egli le portera un regno et ella non porta altro che se
stessa donna.' Without quite accepting this, we must not pass it over.
Winwood too writes to Tremouille: 'le jour avant son trespas elle
declara pour son successeur le roy d'Escosse.' Memoires i. 461.

BOOK IV.

FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN. FIRST DISTURBANCES UNDER
THE STUARTS.

Under no dynasty in the world have great national changes been so
dependent on the personal aims of princes as in England under the
Tudors. Just as all Henry VIII's subsequent proceedings were
determined by the affair of the divorce, so also the policy of his
three children was due to the relations into which they were thrown by
their birth.

No one however could derive the course of English history at this
epoch from this cause alone. How could Henry VIII have even thought of
detaching his kingdom from the Roman See, but for the ancient and
deep-seated national opposition to its encroachments? But the nation
had also for ages had manifold and deep sympathies with Rome; and Mary
Tudor allied herself with these. Together with subjective personal
agencies, national influences of universal prevalence were at work.
The different leanings of the sovereigns appear as exponents of