402 The H I S TO'RY of the FIRYTANS. Chap. VIII. meen Thus things continued to the QpEEN'S death : her tnajeftywas grown Elizabeth, old and infirm, and under a vifible decay of natural fpirits, force fay c for the lofs of the earl of Ejx, whom fhe had lately beheaded ; but The others, from a juft indignation to fee herfelfnegleted by thofe who were death and too ready to worfhip the riling fun. This threw her into a melancholy, charat?er. attended with a drowfinefs, and heavinefs in all her limbs ; which w followed with a lofs of appetite, and all the marks of an approaching dif elution : Upon this fhe retired to Richmond; and having caufed her inauguration ring, which was grown into the flefh, arid become painful, to be filed off, the languifhed till the 24th of March, and then died, in the loth year of her age, and 45th of her reign. Queen Elizabeth was a great and fuccefsful princefs at home, and the fupport of the proteftant intereft abroad, while it was in its infancy ; for without her affiftance, neither the Hugonots in France nor the Dutch reformers could have flood their ground: fhe affifted the proteftants of Scotland againft their popifh queen, and the princes of Germany againft the emperor; whilft at the fame time fhe demanded an abfolute fob- niiffìon from her own fubjeéts; and would not tolerate that religion at home, which fhe countenanced and fupported abroad. As to her own religion, fhe affected a middle way between popery and puritanifm, though her majefty was more inclinable to the former; difliking the fecìilar pretenfions of the court of Rome over foreign flares, though fhe was in love with the pomp and fplendor of their worfhip: On the other hand, the approved of the "doctrines of the foreign reformed churches, but thought they had ¡tripped religion too much of its orna- ments, and made it look with an unfriendly afpeft upon the fovereign power of princes. She underftood'not the rights of confcience in mat- ters of religion ; and is therefore juftly chargeable with perfecuting prin- ciples. More fanguinary laws were made in her reign, than in any of her predeceffors: her hands were flamed with the blood of papßs and puritans; the former were executed for denying her fupremacy, and the latter for fedition or non - conformity. Her greateft admirers blame her for plundering the church of its revenues, and for keeping feveral fees vacant many years together for the fake of their profits; as the bifhop- ricks of Ely, Oxford, and others ; which laft was without a bifhop for twenty-two years. The queen was devout at prayers, yet feldom or never heard fermons except in Lent ; and would often fay, that two or three preachers in a county were fuffrcient. She had high notionsof the fovereign authority of princes, and of her own abfolute fupremacy in Fullei's church affairs: And beingof opinion that methods of feverity were law- TyorrhZe :, ful to bring her fubjects to an outward uniformity, the countenanced 13. ti' P. 313' all the engines of perfecution, as fpiritaal courts, high commi ian, and far-
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