Note 238 — Chapter III
Reading edition
The persecution of catholics in England was made use of as an argument against permitting Henry IV. to reign in France, as appears by the title of a tract published in 1586: "Advertissement des catholiques, Anglois aux François catholiques, du danger où ils sont de perdre leur religion et d'expérimenter, comme en Angleterre, la cruauté des ministres, s'ils reçoivent à la couronne un roy qui soit hérétique." It is in the British Museum.
One of the attacks on Elizabeth deserves some notice, as it has lately been revived. In the statute 13 Eliz. an expression is used, "her majesty, and the natural issue of her body," instead of the more common legal phrase, "lawful issue." This probably was adopted by the queen out of prudery, as if the usual term implied the possibility of her having unlawful issue. But the papistical libellers put the most absurd interpretation on the word "natural," as if it was meant to secure the succession for some imaginary bastards by Leicester. And Dr. Lingard is not ashamed to insinuate the same suspicion. Vol. viii. p. 81, note. Surely what was congenial to the dark malignity of Persons, and the blind frenzy of Whitaker, does not become the good sense, I cannot say the candour, of this writer.
It is true that some, not prejudiced against Elizabeth, have doubted whether "Cupid's fiery dart" was as effectually "quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon," as her poet intimates. This I must leave to the reader's judgment. She certainly went strange lengths of indelicacy. But, if she might sacrifice herself to the queen of Cnidus and Paphos, she was unmercifully severe to those about her, of both sexes, who showed any inclination to that worship, though under the escort of Hymen. Miss Aikin, in her well written and interesting Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth, has collected several instances from Harrington and Birch. It is by no means true, as Dr. Lingard asserts, on the authority of one Faunt, an austere puritan, that her court was dissolute, comparatively at least with the general character of courts; though neither was it so virtuous as the enthusiasts of the Elizabethan period suppose.