DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( So the Princess Elizabeth was released from the 10) Tower, but was still kept strictly confined and jealously watched. In November, 1588, when sitting one day under an oak-tree in the park at Hatfield, Elizabeth received the news of Mary’s death and her own accession to the throne. She fell down on he knees, and exclaimed, ‘It is the Lord's doing!—it is marvellous in our eyes!’ These words she afterwards caused to be stamped on a gold coin, impressing on a silver coin another pious motto: ‘I have chosen God for my helper.’ The young Queen found the realm in an almost hopeless state of civil discord, religious confusion, and financial depression. On the one side there was an independent and powerful nobility, living in fortified castles, enjoying boundless privileges, surrounded by hosts of retainers, and ready to raise the standard of rebellion for their own ambitious ends. The middle class was as yet an unimportant factor, as the trade of England to which it owes its existence and its influence was then in its infancy. Then there were the humble and suffering people, wretch- edly governed, starving and uncared for, looking either to the nobles for their sustenance or seeking to obtain it by brigandage or robbery. The people of England were not only vastly inferior in culture and education to those of the present day, they were also greatly inferior in numbers.