The death of Henry VIII., which took place on January 28th 1547, opened a new and busy scene, and affected in several important points the situation of Elizabeth.

The testament by which the parliament had empowered the king to regulate the government of the country during his son's minority, and even to settle the order of succession itself, with as full authority as the distribution of his private property, was the first object of attention; and its provisions were found strongly characteristic of the temper and maxims of its author. He confirmed the act of parliament by which his two daughters had been rendered capable of inheriting the crown, and appointed to each of them a pension of three thousand pounds, with a marriage-portion of ten thousand pounds, but annexed the condition of their marrying with the consent of such of his executors as should be living. After them, he placed in order of succession Frances marchioness of Dorset, and Eleanor countess of Cumberland, daughters of his younger sister the queen-dowager of France by Charles Brandon duke of Suffolk; and failing the descendants of these ladies he bequeathed the crown to the next heir.

The maritime war with Spain, notwithstanding the cautious temper of the queen, was strenuously waged during the year 1591, and produced some striking indications of the rising spirit of the English navy.

A squadron under lord Thomas Howard, which had been waiting six months at the Azores to intercept the homeward bound ships from Spanish America, was there surprised by a vastly more numerous fleet of the enemy which had been sent out for their convoy. The English admiral got to sea in all haste and made good his retreat, followed by his whole squadron excepting the Revenge, which was entangled in a narrow channel between the port and an island. Sir Richard Grenville her commander, after a vain attempt to break through the Spanish line, determined, with a kind of heroic desperation, to sustain alone the conflict with a whole fleet of fifty-seven sail, and to confront all extremities rather than strike his colors. From three o'clock in the afternoon till day-break he resisted, by almost incredible efforts of valor, all the force which could be brought to bear against him, and fifteen times beat back the boarding parties from his deck. At length, when all his bravest had fallen, and he himself was disabled by many wounds; his powder also being exhausted, his small-arms lost or broken, and his ship a perfect wreck, he proposed to his gallant crew to sink her, that no trophy might remain to the enemy.

During the period of English history included in our present survey, the nobility continued for the most part to inhabit their ancient castles; edifices which, originally adapted by strength of situation and construction merely to defence, were now in many instances, by the alteration of the original buildings and by the accession of additional ones, become splendid palaces. Among these it may be sufficient to mention Kennelworth, renowned for gorgeous festivities, where the earl of Leicester was reported to have expended 60,000 pounds in buildings.

Some curious notices of the habitations of the time are preserved in Leland's Itinerary, written about 1535, as in the following description of Wresehill-castle near Howden in Yorkshire:—‘Most part of the base court is of timber. The castle is moted about on three parts; the fourth part is dry, where the entry is into the castle. Five towers, one at each corner; the gateway is the fifth, having five lodgings in height; three of the other towers have four lodgings in height; the fourth containeth the buttery, pantry, pastry, lardery, and kitchen. In one of the towers a study called Paradise, where was a closet in the middle of eight squares latticed, about and at the top of every square was a desk lodged to set books on, &c. The garde robe in the castle was exceeding fair, and so were the gardens within the mote and the orchards without; and in the orchards were mounts opere topiario writhen about with degrees like turnings of a cockle-shell, to come to top without pain.’

The first yard you enter is for felons, tried and untried, boys and men; at the end of this is an open iron railing, within is the narrow airing place of the infirmary; beyond is the vagrants' court, equally connected with the infirmary by open iron work. Thus the patients communicate with the vagrants on one side, and the felons on the other; nothing surely could be more admirably contrived for the interchange of physical and moral contagion.

Many of the wards, in which the prisoners sleep, are sunk below the level of the ground, and this level is considered to be below high water mark. The up-stairs rooms of the Governor's house are much affected with damp; hearing this from himself, I could not suspect the truth of the statements of the prisoners, who complained bitterly of the cold and moisture of these cells. To obviate these inconveniences, as many as possible crowd together at night into the same cell;–how injurious this must be to health, can be conceived by the statement of the jailer, who told me that having occasion lately to open one of the doors in the night, the effluvia was almost intolerable. My readers will naturally ask–what is the result of these precautions against health? I will answer by facts. We saw a woman lying in one of the wards, who seemed very ill.

Notwithstanding all the frugal arts of Elizabeth, the state of her finances compelled her in the spring of 1593 to summon a parliament. It was four entire years since this assembly had last met: but her majesty took care to let the commons know, that the causes of offence which had then occurred were still fresh in her memory, and that her resolution to preserve her own prerogative in its rigor, and the ecclesiastical commission in all its terrors, was still inflexible.

It even appeared, that an apprehension lest her present necessities might embolden the parliament to treat her despotic mandates with a deference less profound than formerly, irritated her temper, and prompted her to assume a more haughty and menacing style than her habitual study of popularity had hitherto permitted her to employ. In answer to the three customary requests made by the speaker, for liberty of speech, freedom from arrests, and access to her person, she replied by her lord keeper, That such liberty of speech as the commons were justly entitled to,—liberty, namely, of aye and no,—she was willing to grant; but by no means a liberty for every one to speak what he listed. And if any idle heads should be found careless enough of their own safety to attempt innovations in the state, or reforms in the church, she laid her injunctions on the speaker to refuse the bills offered for such purposes till they should have been examined by those who were better qualified to judge of these matters.

Great as had been the injustice committed by Elizabeth in the detention of the queen of Scots, it must be confessed that the offence brought with it its own sufficient punishment in the fears, jealousies and disquiets which it entailed upon her.

Where Mary was concerned, the most approved loyalty, the longest course of faithful service, and the truest attachment to the protestant cause, were insufficient pledges to her oppressor of the fidelity of her nobles or ministers. The earl of Shrewsbury, whom she had deliberately selected from all others to be the keeper of the captive queen, and whose vigilance had now for so long a period baffled all attempts for her deliverance, was, to the last, unable so to establish himself in the confidence of his sovereign as to be exempt from such starts of suspicion and fits of displeasure as kept him in a state of continual apprehension. Feeling with acuteness all the difficulties of his situation, this nobleman judged it expedient to cause Gilbert lord Talbot, his eldest son, to remain in close attendance on the motions of the queen; charging him to study with unremitting attention all the intrigues of the court, on which in that day so much depended, and to acquaint him with them frequently and minutely. To this precaution of the earl's we owe several extant letters of lord Talbot, which throw considerable light on the minor incidents of the time.

In this jail the prisoners complained much of cold, and not unreasonably, as I thought, for the dayroom for all of them, at this time amounting to thirty-five, and at one period of the year for a short time amounting to as many as one hundred, is nine feet ten inches by nine feet six inches; eight feet three inches high. It is therefore evidently impossible, in snow, or rain, or frost, for them to obtain shelter or warmth. A prisoner, however, has the privilege, if he requires it, of being shut up all day in his sleeping cell, with unclosed windows and without fire, and these cells are opened in very severe weather.

There is no Infirmary, and no possibility of separating the healthy from the sick. They must sleep together, and the rooms must be crowded. Low fever was very prevalent in the autumn; there were as many as six cases at a time: had the disorder been very contagious, the consequences, in the Governor's opinion, must have been dreadful.

There is no chapel, service in fine weather is performed in the yard, in the winter it is often dispensed with.

In the literature of our country, however copious, the eye of the curious student may still detect important deficiencies.

We possess, for example, many and excellent histories, embracing every period of our domestic annals;—biographies, general and particular, which appear to have placed on record the name of every private individual justly entitled to such commemoration;—and numerous and extensive collections of original letters, state-papers and other historical and antiquarian documents;—whilst our comparative penury is remarkable in royal lives, in court histories, and especially in that class which forms the glory of French literature,—memoir.

To supply in some degree this want, as it affects the person and reign of one of the most illustrious of female and of European sovereigns, is the intention of the work now offered with much diffidence to the public.

Its plan comprehends a detailed view of the private life of Elizabeth from the period of her birth; a view of the domestic history of her reign; memoirs of the principal families of the nobility and biographical anecdotes of the celebrated characters who composed her court; besides notices of the manners, opinions and literature of the reign.

Magna Charta declares that no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, but by the lawful judgment of his equals, or the law of the land.

When a prisoner is convicted by the “lawful judgment of his equals,” imprisonment is sometimes a part, and sometimes the whole of the penalty awarded against him; and evidently with the strictest justice, because it is proved that he has been guilty of an offence, and this is the appointed punishment.

But the “law of the land” finds it necessary to depart from this rigid rule of equity, which would abridge only that man of his freedom, who had been pronounced a delinquent by the verdict of his peers. The security of the whole demands, that the liberty of some should be suspended for a certain period. Persons are accused of crimes–they may be innocent, or they may be guilty: but their detention is necessary until the time arrives in which one or the other can be established; yet, they are innocent in the eye of the law, till their guilt is proved; and in this case imprisonment is not imposed as a penalty, it is merely permitted as the only method of insuring the appearance of the person suspected, on the day of trial.

This house of correction, on which it is proposed to expend nearly 600,000l. is built in a morass. On going towards it, we observed a line, marking the height to which the water occasionally rises; consequently the foundations have hitherto been found entirely defective. The external wall gave way during the time it was building; two towers have already been taken down to prevent their falling; and two more are in a precarious state. Large external cracks are every where visible, and internally the ceilings are separating. The state of the cells, the fissures in the wall, and the derangement of the pavement, seemed to us to warrant alarm, as to the permanence of the building. I mention these circumstances, because I anticipate very considerable and continual expense in its support; and this expense may be confounded with the inevitable charges of the penitentiary system; and thus a prejudice may arise against it. But it is obvious, that the system can have nothing to do with any errors as to the situation which is chosen. It surely is not necessary always to select a swamp for the site of a building, which requires above all things a dry foundation, and a free wholesome atmosphere.

Notwithstanding the uniform success and general applause which had hitherto crowned her administration, at no point perhaps of her whole reign was the path of Elizabeth more beset with perplexities and difficulties than at the commencement of the year 1567.

The prevalence of the Scottish faction had compelled her to give a pledge to her parliament respecting matrimony, which must either be redeemed by the sacrifice of her darling independence, or forfeited with the loss of her credit and popularity. Her favorite state-mystery,—the choice of a successor,—had also been invaded by rude and daring hands; and to such extremity was she reduced on this point, that she had found it necessary to empower the commissioners whom she sent into Scotland for the baptism of the prince, distinctly to propound the following offer. That on a simple ratification by Mary of only so much of the treaty of Edinburgh as engaged her to advance no claim upon the English crown during the lifetime of Elizabeth or any posterity of hers, a solemn recognition of her right of succession should be made by the queen and parliament of England.

The Scottish ministry, instead of closing instantly with so advantageous a proposal, were imprudent enough to insist upon a previous examination of the will of Henry VIII., which they fondly believed that they could show to be a forgery: and the delay which the refusal of Elizabeth occasioned, gave time for the interposition of circumstances which ruined for ever the character and authority of Mary, and rescued her sister-queen from this dilemma.

The situation of Elizabeth, amid its many difficulties, presented none so perplexing, none which the opinions of her most prudent counsellors were so much divided on the best mode of obviating, as those arising out of the doubt and confusion in which the right of succession was still involved. Her avowed repugnance to marriage, which was now feared to be insurmountable, kept the minds of men continually busy on this dangerous topic, and she was already incurring the blame of many by the backwardness which she discovered in designating a successor and causing her choice to be confirmed, as it would readily have been, by the parliament.

But this censure must be regarded as unjust. Even though the jealousy of power had found no entrance into the bosom of Elizabeth, sound policy required her long to deliberate before she formed a decision, and perhaps, whatever that decision might be, forbade her, under present circumstances, to announce it to the world.

The title of the queen of Scots, otherwise unquestionable, was barred by the will of Henry VIII., ratified by an unrepealed act of parliament, and nothing less solemn than a fresh act of the whole legislature would have been sufficient to render it perfectly free from objection: and could Elizabeth be in reason expected to take such a step in behalf of a foreign and rival sovereign, professing a religion hostile to her own and that of her people; of one, above all, who had openly pretended a right to the crown preferable to her own, and who was even now exhausting the whole art of intrigue to undermine and supplant her?

It was to little purpose that the protector had stained his hands with the blood of his brother, for the exemption thus purchased from one kind of fear or danger, was attended by a degree of public odium which could not fail to render feeble and tottering an authority based, like his, on plain and open usurpation.

Other causes conspired to undermine his credit and prepare his overthrow. The hatred of the great nobles, which he augmented by a somewhat too ostentatious patronage of the lower classes against the rich and powerful, continually pursued and watched the opportunity to ruin him. Financial difficulties pressed upon him, occasioned in great measure by the wars with France and Scotland which he had carried on, in pursuance of Henry's design of compelling the Scotch to marry their young queen to his son. An object which had finally been frustrated, notwithstanding the vigilance of the English fleet, by the safe arrival of Mary in France, and her solemn betrothment to the dauphin. The great and glorious work of religious reformation, though followed by Somerset, under the guidance of Cranmer, with a moderation and prudence which reflect the highest honor on both, could not be brought to perfection without exciting the rancorous hostility of thousands, whom various motives and interests attached to the cause of ancient superstition; and the abolition, by authority, of the mass, and the destruction of images and crucifixes, had given birth to serious disturbances in different parts of the country.

We first went to the Borough Jail, which is a wooden building.

A girl was confined in the day-room, the window at which she sits, opens to the street, with which it is nearly on a level. We, standing in the street, conversed with her, and the bars are wide enough to admit any thing, of which the bulk is not very considerable; of course spirits could not be excluded. On the Sessions day, this window is closed by a shutter, as it was found that the prisoners got drunk, and were in that state during their trial. The jailer opened a door, of what appeared to us a dark closet, assuring us that when we entered we should be able to see;–and, in fact, we could discover the dimensions by the light admitted through the crevices of a hole, which had been formerly stopped up, at the top of the room. To this day-room for men, (in which the difference between night and day is hardly discernible) the only entrance was through the women's apartment.

The bed-rooms were equally incommodious. The men and women are separated by an open railing, the bars of which are about six inches distant from each other, and the only air, or light, admitted to the men's apartment, is through this lattice. The allowance of food is one pound and a half of bread per day, and no firing is provided, in fact it would be needless, for there is no fire-place.

This prison is situated just out of the city. It was originally intended to be an octagon, but at present only five departments are finished;–still an entire separation is effected between,

It is in contemplation to finish the building, and when this takes place, there will be six additional subdivisions. For each of the above description of prisoners, an open court is provided, in which they have their daily exercise.

First we saw the untried, and those who have appealed against their sentences. There is nothing peculiar in their treatment. They do not work, and no instruction is afforded to them.

We next visited the tried. Their beds are in small recesses, from a gallery opening to the court. Each has a separate sleeping cell, which is furnished with a metal bedstead, a thick mattress, a double sheet, a double and single blanket, and a pillow. The bedding is brought out to be aired in fine weather, and the doors are open all day. The rooms were perfectly sweet and clean.

The major part of the prisoners of the same class work together, in rooms 170 feet long and 26 broad. The principal employment is weaving calico, damask, and sacking cloth, but there are shops for sawyers, carpenters, blacksmiths, &c.

In the parliament which met in January 1559, two matters personally interesting to the queen were agitated; her title to the crown, and her marriage; and both were disposed of in a manner calculated to afford a just presage of the maxims by which the whole tenor of her future life and reign was to be guided. By the eminently prudent and judicious counsels of sir Nicholas Bacon keeper of the seals, she omitted to require of parliament the repeal of those acts of her father's reign which had declared his marriage with her mother null, and herself illegitimate; and reposing on the acknowledged maxim of law, that the crown once worn takes away all defects in blood, she contented herself with an act declaratory in general terms of her right of succession. Thus the whole perplexing subject of her mother's character and conduct was consigned to an oblivion equally safe and decent; and the memory of her father, which, in spite of all his acts of violence and injustice, was popular in the nation and respected by herself, was saved from the stigma which the vindication of Anne Boleyn must have impressed indelibly upon it.

On the other topic she explained herself with an earnest sincerity which might have freed her from all further importunity in any concern less interesting to the wishes of her people. To a deputation from the house of commons with an address, “the special matter whereof was to move her grace to marriage,” after a gracious reception, she delivered an answer in which the following passages are remarkable.