CHAPTER XLII.
ELIZABETH.
{1586.} The dangers which arose from the character, principles, and pretensions of the queen of Scots, had very early engaged Elizabeth to consult, in her treatment of that unfortunate princess, the dictates of jealousy and politics, rather than of friendship or generosity: resentment of this usage had pushed Mary into enterprises which had nearly threatened the repose and authority of Elizabeth: the rigor and restraint thence redoubled upon the captive queen,[*] still impelled her to attempt greater extremities; and while her impatience of confinement, her revenge,[**] [20] and her high spirit concurred with religious zeal, and the suggestions of desperate bigots, she was at last engaged in designs which afforded her enemies, who watched the opportunity, a pretence or reason for effecting her final ruin.
* Digges, p.139.Haynes, p.

607.
** See note T.at the end of the volume.
The English seminary at Rheims had wrought themselves up to a high pitch of rage and animosity against the queen.

The recent persecutions from which they had escaped; the new rigors which they knew awaited them in the course of their missions; the liberty which for the present they enjoyed of declaiming against that princess; and the contagion of that religious fury which every where surrounded them in France; all these causes had obliterated with them every maxim of common sense, and every principle of morals or humanity.

Intoxicated with admiration of the divine power and infallibility of the pope, they revered his bull by which he excommunicated and deposed the queen; and some of them had gone to that height of extravagance as to assert, that that performance had been immediately dictated by the Holy Ghost.

The assassination of heretical sovereigns, and of that princess in particular, was represented as the most meritorious of all enterprises; and they taught, that whoever perished in such pious attempts, enjoyed, without dispute, the glorious and never-fading crown of martyrdom.