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CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN HISTORY
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From the British Museum and the State Paper Office . By F . Von Raumer . Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots . 1 vol . London ; Charles Knight . 1836 . The present volume will be interesting to all those students of history who feel a curiosity to analyse the characters of two extraordinary Queens , who lived nearly three centuries ago .
The characters of Elizabeth and Mary present a singular contrast . Elizabeth was essentially a Queen ; Mary essentially a woman , Elizabeth was an epitome of the principle of royalty , in all its splendour of Divine right and inviolable dignity ; Mary of all the feminine qualities , degenerated by peculiar
constitution and most unpropitious circumstances , into weaknesses and vices . Elizabeth was able to sacrifice to the duties of royalty , such as those duties were in her eyes , all her feelings and faculties ; Mary did not even perceive that as a Queen she had duties , she only felt she had power and the means of
enjoyment . Elizabeth was able to maintain a despotism iii spite of the growing spirit of liberty , because she never gave her subjects the advantage of granting or refusing her supplies , and was popular in spite of her tyranny , because she did not oppress them for their money . Had her successors been equally prudent , Charles the First would not have been brought to the
scaffold . Mary lost all power , and nearly all hearts , by indulging a lively and sanguine temperament in a puritanical age ; she was a licentious Queen of a people who would scarcely have borne a licentious King , and she became through her passions the slave of one man after another .
We believe with M . Von Raumer that Elizabeth did sincerely espouse the cause of Mary against her rebellious subjects , but it was simply because Mary was the Queen , and they were
subjects . She , on this occasion , nearly forgot her policy in her prejudices . See her charge to Throgmorton : — " To assure them that Queen Elizabeth will oblige them by force to grant liberty to their sovereign ; that her faults are to be covered by their humble petition and request , and not at all by force . That princes ' hearts are only in the hand of God , to whom they are amenable . "p . 106 .
The defence of the Scotch presented to her in answer , reads very finely after this : — " The nobility and people of Scotland are a free people , who at first chose their kings , and appointed a council of the wisest men to assist them . Nay , eyer since royalty was admitted in the kingdom , the nobles
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Contributions to Modern History . 177
Contributions To Modern History
CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN HISTORY
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No . 123 , M
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 1, 1837, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1829/page/51/
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