h the
Queen. The whole face of the realm had been silently changing during the
later years of her reign. The dangers which had hitherto threatened our
national existence and our national unity had alike disappeared. The
kingdom which had been saved from ruin but fifty years before by the
jealousies of its neighbours now stood in the forefront of European
powers. France clung to its friendship. Spain trembled beneath its
blows. The Papacy had sullenly withdrawn from a fruitless strife with
the heretic island. The last of the Queen's labours had laid Ireland at
her feet, and her death knit Scotland to its ancient enemy by the tie of
a common king. Within England itself the change was as great. Religious
severance, the most terrible of national dangers, had been averted by
the patience and the ruthlessness of the Crown. The Catholics were weak
and held pitilessly down. The Protestant sectaries were hunted as
pitilessly from the realm. The ecclesiastical compromise of the Tudors
had at last won the adhesion of the country at large. Nor was the social
change less remarkable. The natural growth of wealth and a patient good
government had gradually put an end to all social anarchy. The dread of
feudal revolt had passed for ever away. The fall of the Northern Earls,
of Norfolk, and of Essex, had broken the last strength of the older
houses. The baronage had finally made way for a modern nobility, but
this nobility, sprung as it was from the court of the Tudors, and
dependent for its existence on the favour of the Crown, had none of that
traditional hold on the people at large which made the feudal lords so
formidable a danger to public order.

[Sidenote: Growth of social wealth.]

If the older claims of freedom had been waived in presence of the
dangers which so long beset even national existence, the disappearance
of these dangers brought naturally with it a revival of the craving for
liberty and self-government. And once awakened such a craving found a
solid backing in the material progress of the time, in the upgrowth of
new social classes, in the intellectual developement of the people, and
in the new boldness and vigour of the national temper. The long outer
peace, the tranquillity of the realm, the lightness of taxation till the
outbreak of war with Spain, had spread prosperity throughout the land.
Even the war failed to hinder the enrichment of the trading classes. The
Netherlands were the centre of European trade, and