food in the country. There was a terrible famine, and a large number of the Irish people there died of starvation.

6. The Monopolies.-Elizabeth had very little money. She did not like to ask parliament to tax the people, for fear of making people dissatisfied

QUEEN ELIZABETH IN THE MANTLE OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.

with her. At the same time she had a great many favourites whom she wished to reward, and she did it by giving them the monopoly of some article or other; that is to say, by allowing nobody but them to sell it. Of course they charged more for these things than would have been charged if anybody who liked had

been allowed to sell them. At last the people got angry, and the House of Commons begged her to put an end to these monopolies. The Queen at once gave way. When she knew that all her people were determined to have a thing, she never resisted them. 'I have more cause to thank you all,' she said to the Speaker of the House of Commons, than you me; and I charge you to thank them of the House of Commons from me, for had I not received a knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lap of an error, only for lack of true information. I have ever used to set the last judgment-day before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge, to whose judgment-seat I do appeal, that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good. Though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had, or shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.'

7. Elizabeth's Death.-This was the last time that Elizabeth spoke to her people. In 1603 she died, after a long reign of forty-five years. She had many faults, but she was a great queen. She found England divided and weak, she left it united and strong. Englishmen were proud of their country. As we look back to that time we are able to see that if they were fierce and cruel in their revenge upon Spain, the victory was one for which all the world was the better. Spain was a land of tyranny, where no man dared to speak a word against the king or the church. England was not so free as it is now,

but it was much freer than any other country in Europe was then. It was a land where men, if they did not want to overthrow the government, might speak as they pleased, and think as they pleased. Great writers and great poets arose at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Shakspere, the greatest of them all, expressed the feeling which taught Englishmen that their well-being lay in the unity among themselves which sprang from their devotion to the queen, when he wrote:—

This England never did-nor never shall-
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.

SECOND PERIOD.

CHAPTER XXIII.

JAMES I. AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

(1603-1614.)

1. Accession of James I.-James I., the king who succeeded Elizabeth, came from Scotland. He was the son of Mary Queen of Scots who had been beheaded at Fotheringay, and the great-grandson of the eldest sister of Henry VIII. For the first time the same king ruled over Scotland as well as England; though each country, for a long time afterwards, kept its own laws and its own Parliament.

2. The Hampton Court Conference.—Many people expected that when the new king arrived he would make many changes which Elizabeth had been unwilling to make. Amongst these, the Puritans thought that he would do something for them. They did not want to separate from the Church of England, and to have churches or chapels of their own. Those of them who were clergymen asked to be allowed to leave out parts of the service which they