Englishmen felt that they could no longer remain halting between two opinions.  They realized that now they must resolve to take their stand by the Queen or else by the Pope.  Parliament at once retaliated against the Pope by passing two stringent measures which declared it high treason for any one to deny the Queen’s right to the crown, to name her successor, to denounce her as a heretic, or to say or do anything which should “alienate the hearts and minds of her Majesty’s subjects from their dutiful obedience” to her.  Later, the “Association,” a vigilance committee, was formed by a large number of the principal people of the realm to protect Elizabeth against assassination.  Not only prominent Protestants but many Catholic noblemen joined the organization to defend the Queen at all hazards.

397.  Elizabeth beheads Mary, 1587.

The ominous significance of these events had their full effect on the English Queen.  Aroused to a sense of her danger, she signed the Scottish Queen’s death warrant, and Mary, after nineteen years’ imprisonment, was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle.[1]

[1] Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire, demolished by James I.

As soon as the news of her execution was brought to Elizabeth, she became alarmed at the political consequences the act might have in Europe.  With her usual duplicity she bitterly upbraided the minister who had advised it, and throwing Davidson, her secretary, into the Tower, fined him 10,000 pounds, the payment of which reduced him to beggary.

Not satisfied with this, Elizabeth even had the effrontery to write a letter of condolence to Mary’s son, James VI, declaring that his mother had been beheaded by mistake!  Yet facts prove that Elizabeth had not only determined to put Mary to death, but that she had urged those who held Mary prisoner to kill her privately.[2]

[2] See “Elizabeth” in the “National Dictionary of (British) Biography.”

398.  The Spanish Armada.

Mary was hardly under ground when a new and greater danger threatened the country.  At her death, the Scottish Queen, disgusted with her mean-spirited son James,[3] bequeathed her dominions, including her claim to the English throne, to Philip II of Spain (S370).  He was then the most powerful sovereign in Europe, ruling over a territory equal to that of the Roman Empire in its greatest extent.

[3] James had deserted his mother and accepted a pension from Elizabeth.

Philip II, with the encouragement of the Pope, and with the further help of the promise of a very large sum of money from him, resolved to invade England, conquer it, annex it to his possessions, and restore the religion of Rome.  To accomplish this, he began fitting out the “Invisible Armada,” an immense fleet of warships, intended to carry twenty thousand soldiers, and to receive on its way reenforcements of thirty thousand more from the Spanish army in the Netherlands.