Not by _fire_ and by _faggot_ was _she_ hurried away,
But by painful sickness and loathsome decay.
Now commences the reign of the "Good Queen Bess,"
But _why_ she's called _good_ I never could guess:
Yet justice constrains me to allow in the main,
That her's was a glorious and most prosperous reign.
She had the good sense to know whom to admit
To her private councils, as men the most fit;
And by their advice, good sense and discretion,
She managed with _fitness_ to govern the nation.
As a Queen she seems great, though _weak_ as a woman,
And when praised as a _Goddess_, was no more than human;
At the age of threescore, she loved to be compared
As a beauty to Venus, though crook'd and red haired.
Of lovers she had full many a one,
Who sought, through her hand, a pass to the throne,
But chose to remain single; for full well she knew,
That in giving her hand, she gave away her power too.
In this reign we find ineffacible blots,
In the treatment of Essex, and Mary of Scots;
The death of the former, the Queen sorely repents,
And for her lost Essex she deeply laments.
The remorse of a Countess, in keeping his ring,
I leave to some rhymer, more able to sing.
Next James sixth of Scotland, _first_ of England became--
In peace and security permitted to reign.
In the person of James, two crowns were united,
And England and Scotland remain undivided.
With this king the reign of the Stuarts began,
And continued to the end of the reign of Queen Ann.