CHAPTER II
Elizabeth, the Queen, and the Roman Catholic demand—her withdrawal from Court—the Wyatt rebellion—the Princess in the Tower, and her release—the Spanish marriage, and the reconciliation with Rome—prospects of Elizabeth’s succession—Mary’s distrust of her—Philip accepts her succession—proposals for her marriage—the division between France and Spain, and the schism in the Roman Catholic front—last efforts of Mary—loyalty to Elizabeth fashionable—her accession.
The single danger to Elizabeth’s person hitherto had been political; now an element in which, by nature, she had no keen interest, entered her life: the element of dogma. The change upon the Throne had suddenly rendered herself and her household religiously suspect to the sovereign. Unless she could be converted she was bound to remain a precise threat of that permanent nature of heresy which was, in the period of the Reformation, its new and shattering characteristic. The two sisters, opposed in their theologies, were still more opposed in their temperaments. There was in Mary a strain of supernatural humility; she devoutly and sincerely adored God and obeyed a revelation from God. There was in Elizabeth a queer strain of natural humility—or of that common sense which is unsanctified humility. She thought it was always quite possible that she might be wrong, and even more strongly did she feel that everybody else might be wrong. When she was opposed or when she was angry, this natural humility was often lost in an equally natural obstinacy, but it existed. Mary exalted a hypothesis into faith—a superb and noble achievement. Elizabeth could hardly allow it to be even a hypothesis if she could not also feel that it was a fact. Elizabeth, expressing, after her own manner, her most sincere religious beliefs, would always have left Mary with a strong feeling that her sister was irreligious. Since, at present, from Mary’s point of view, she was in matters of faith almost worse than irreligious, the hostility between them, bound at best to be subdued but permanent, grew to the worst and increased.
In a few months two things became clear. First, Mary’s policy was to be actively and penally Roman; second, she proposed to marry the Prince of Spain. The first was unpopular among the stalwarts of the true religion; the second, almost everywhere. Spain was the great maritime commercial rival, the power threatening mastery. There was, if not a party, yet certainly a prejudice in favour of Elizabeth in two places—among the general populace of London and at the Court of France, both hostile to Spain. But Spain and Papalism were two separate things, and Elizabeth’s immediate difficulty was with the second. For a few weeks she held aloof fro
