On the accession of Mary, her elder sister, daughter of Catharine of Aragon, Elizabeth’s position was exceedingly critical, exposed as she was to the intrigues of the Catholics and the jealousy of the Queen.  And when we remember that the great question and issue of that age was whether the Catholic or Protestant religion should have the ascendency, and that this ascendency seemed to hinge upon the private inclinations of the sovereign who in the furtherance of this great end would scruple at nothing to accomplish it, and that the greatest crimes committed for its sake would be justified by all the sophistries that religious partisanship could furnish, and be upheld by all bigots and statesmen as well as priests, it is really remarkable that Elizabeth was spared.  For Mary was not only urged on to the severest measures by Gardiner and Bonner (the bishops of Winchester and London), and by all the influences of Rome, to which she was devoted body and soul,—­yea, by all her confidential advisers in the State, to save themselves from future contingencies,—­but she was also jealous of her sister, as Elizabeth was afterwards jealous of Mary Stuart.  And it would have been as easy for Mary to execute Elizabeth as it was for Elizabeth to execute the Queen of Scots, or Henry VIII. to behead his wives; and such a crime would have been excused as readily as the execution of Somerset or of the Lady Jane Grey, both from political necessity and religious expediency.  Elizabeth was indeed subjected to great humiliations, and even compelled to sue for her life.  What more piteous than her letter to Mary, begging only for an interview:  “Wherefore I humbly beseech your Majesty to let me answer before yourself; and, once again kneeling with humbleness of heart, I earnestly crave to speak to your Highness, which I would not be so bold as to desire if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself most true.”  Here is a woman pleading for her life to a sister to whom she had done no wrong, and whose only crime was in being that sister’s heir.  What an illustration of the jealousy of royalty and the bitterness of religious feuds; and what a contrast in this servile speech to that arrogance which Elizabeth afterward assumed towards her Parliament and greatest lords!  Ah, to what cringing meanness are most people reduced by adversity!  In what pride are we apt to indulge in the hour of triumph!  How circumstances change the whole appearance of our lives!

Elizabeth, however, in order to save her life, was obliged to dissemble.  If her true Protestant opinions had been avowed, I doubt if she could have escaped.  We do not see in this dissimulation anything very lofty; yet she acted with singular tact and discretion.  It is creditable, however, to Mary that she did not execute her sister.  She showed herself more noble than Elizabeth did later in her treatment of the Queen of Scots.  History calls her the “Bloody Mary;” and it must be admitted that she was