elt, during the whole course of her reign, any effects of her
resentment.[**] Yet was not the gracious reception which she gave,
prostitute and undistinguishing. When the bishops came in a body to
make their obeisance to her, she expressed to all of them sentiments
of regard; except to Bonner, from whom she turned aside, as from a man
polluted with blood, who was a just object of horror to every heart
susceptible of humanity.[***]

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 373.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 374.

*** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 374. Heylin, p. 102.

After employing a few days in ordering her domestic affairs, Elizabeth
notified to foreign courts her sister's death, and her own accession.
She sent Lord Cobham to the Low Countries, where Philip then resided;
and she took care to express to that monarch her gratitude for the
protection which he had afforded her, and her desire of persevering in
that friendship which had so happily commenced between them. Philip,
who had long foreseen this event, and who still hoped, by means of
Elizabeth, to obtain that dominion over England, of which he had failed
in espousing Mary, immediately despatched orders to the duke of Feria,
his ambassador at London, to make proposals of marriage to the queen;
and he offered to procure from Rome a dispensation for that purpose. But
Elizabeth soon came to the resolution of declining the proposal. She
saw that the nation had entertained an extreme aversion to the Spanish
alliance during her sister's reign; and that one great cause of the
popularity which she herself enjoyed, was the prospect of being freed by
her means from the danger of foreign subjection. She was sensible that
her affinity with Philip was exactly similar to that of her father with
Catharine of Arragon; and that her marrying that monarch was, in effect,
declaring herself illegitimate, and incapable of succeeding to the
throne. And though the power of the Spanish monarchy might still be
sufficient, in opposition to all pretenders, to support her title, her
masculine spirit disdained such precarious dominion, which, as it would
depend solely on the power of another, must be exercised according
to his inclinations.[*] But while these views prevented her from
entertaining any thoughts of a marriage with Philip, she gave him an
obliging, though evasive answer; and he still retained such hopes of
success, that he sent a messenger to Rome, with orders to solicit the
dispensation.