Note 97 — DIALOGUE IV. ON THE AGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

This account of her policy is confirmed by what we read in the Disparity, before cited. “That trick of countenancing and protecting factions (as that queen, almost her whole reign, did with singular and equal demonstration of grace look upon several persons of most distant wishes one towards another) was not the least ground of much of her quiet and success. And she never doubted but that men, that were never so opposite in their good-will each to other, or never so dishonest in their projectments for each other’s confusion, might yet be reconciled in their allegiance towards her. Insomuch that, during her whole reign, she never endeavoured to reconcile any personal differences in the court, though the unlawful emulations of persons of nearest trust about her, were ever like to overthrow some of her chiefest designs: A policy, seldom entertained by princes, especially if they have issues to survive them,” p. 46. Her own historian, it is true, seems a little shy of acknowledging this conduct of the queen, with regard to her nobility and ministers. But he owns, “She now and then took a pleasure (and not unprofitably) in the emulation and privy grudges of her women.” Camden’s Elizabeth, p. 79. fol. Lond. 1688.