precipitated an attack when she was unprepared and defenceless. Her
dalliances and expediencies and dissimulations delayed the evil day,
until she was ready for the death-struggle; and when the tempest of
angry human forces finally broke upon her defenceless head, she was
saved only by a storm of wind and rain which Providence kindly and
opportunely sent. Had the "Invincible Armada" been permitted to invade
England at the beginning of her reign, there would probably have been
another Spanish conquest. What chance would the untrained militia of a
scattered population, without fortresses or walled cities or military
leaders of skill, have had against the veteran soldiers who were
marshalled under Philip II., with all the experiences learned in the
wars of Charles V. and in the conquest of Peru and Mexico, aided, too,
by the forces of France and the terrors of the Vatican and the money of
the Flemish manufacturers? It was the dictate of self-preservation which
induced Elizabeth to prevaricate, and to deceive the powerful monarchs
who were in league against her. If ever lying and cheating were
justifiable, they were then; if political jesuitism is ever defensible,
it was in the sixteenth century. So that I cannot be hard on the
embarrassed Queen for a policy which on the strict principles of
morality it would be difficult to defend. It was a dark age of
conspiracies, rebellions, and cabals. In dealing with the complicated
relations of government in that day, there were no recognized principles
but those of expediency. Even in our own times, expediency rather than
right too often seems to guide nations. It is not just and fair,
therefore, to expect from a sovereign, in Queen Elizabeth's time, that
openness and fairness which are the result only of a higher national
civilization. What would be blots on government to-day were not deemed
blots in the sixteenth century. Elizabeth must be judged by the standard
of her age, not of ours, in her official and public acts.