DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 48 ) Sir Robert Cecil, the son of Lord Burleigh, and a Secretary of State, insisted that she ‘ must go to bed.’ ‘ Must!’ she exclaimed, ‘is must a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man, thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word; thou art so presumptuous, because thou knowest I shall die.” From that moment she never rallied. Thus Elizabeth passed away at the age of seventy after a reign of forty-five years. On recalling the memories of those stirring days Englishmen will gladly condone the weaknesses of the maiden queen for the qualities of the sovereion. At one of the most momentous crises in their annals she identified herself with her subjects in their manly and loyal struggles, and assisted them by her sagacity, energy, and patriotism, in asserting their independence, and together with them paved the way for the future glories of the country. Visitors to Westminster Abbey will halt and muse in the chapel where two monuments, of equal size and similar design, stand side by side, over her ashes, and over those of her unfortunate victim, Mary Stuart. These monuments becomingly link together the past and the present. Queen Elizabeth was the last sovereign of the Tudor line; with her were buried the confusion and darkness of ancient times, and all uncertainty as to the fortunes of