at longer and longer intervals. By
rigid economy, by a policy of balance and peace, she strove, and for a
long time successfully strove, to avoid the necessity of assembling them
at all. But Mary of Scotland and Philip of Spain proved friends to
English liberty in its sorest need. The struggle with Catholicism forced
Elizabeth to have more frequent recourse to her Parliaments, and as she
was driven to appeal for increasing supplies the tone of the Houses rose
higher and higher.

[Sidenote: The struggle with the Parliament.]

What made this revival of Parliamentary independence more important was
the range which Cromwell's policy had given to Parliamentary action. In
theory the Tudor statesman regarded three cardinal subjects, matters of
trade, matters of religion, and matters of State, as lying exclusively
within the competence of the Crown. But in actual fact such subjects
had been treated by Parliament after Parliament. The whole religious
fabric of the realm rested on Parliamentary enactments. The very title
of Elizabeth rested in a Parliamentary statute. When the Houses
petitioned at the outset of her reign for the declaration of a successor
and for the Queen's marriage it was impossible for her to deny their
right to intermeddle with these "matters of State," though she rebuked
the demand and evaded an answer. But the question of the succession was
a question too vital for English freedom and English religion to remain
prisoned within Elizabeth's council-chamber. It came again to the front
in the Parliament which the pressure from Mary Stuart forced Elizabeth
to assemble after six prorogations and an interval of four years in
September 1566. The Lower House at once resolved that the business of
supply should go hand in hand with that of the succession. Such a step
put a stress on the monarchy which it had never known since the War of
the Roses. The Commons no longer confined themselves to limiting or
resisting the policy of the Crown; they dared to dictate it. Elizabeth's
wrath showed her sense of the importance of their action. "They had
acted like rebels!" she said, "they had dealt with her as they dared not
have dealt with her father." "I cannot tell," she broke out angrily to
the Spanish ambassador, "what these devils want!" "They want liberty,
madam," replied the Spaniard, "and if princes do not look to themselves
and work together to put such people down they will find before long
what all this is coming to