high rank in art, still lacked national unity--four sovereigns of
marked though widely diverse character and attainments reigned for a
considerable part of Shakespeare's life. Of the "Virgin Queen" we
scarcely need to write. The England of her day, and of later days,
would not have been what it was and what it became, without the aid of
her mingled shrewdness and prudence. Faults she had and shortcomings,
but, granted the almost overpowering difficulties she had to face,
both at home and abroad, it is doubtful whether a more decided, a more
straight-forward policy would have been as successful as the somewhat
devious one she pursued. Her chief rival, Philip II (1556-1598), as
much averse as Elizabeth herself to energetic action, even more fond
of procrastination, lacked her relative religious and political
tolerance, and left Spain weaker than he had found it. And still his
tenacity, his devotion to the cause he believed to be that of heaven,
his consistency, and even the gloomy seriousness of his life, testify
to a strong soul, though a thoroughly unlovable one.

The reign of the eccentric Rudolph II, Emperor of Germany (1576-1612),
whose imperial residence was at Prague, covers the greater part of
Shakespeare's life. In spite of many failings and mistakes, this
monarch did much to foster the study of the arts and sciences of his
age, so far as he was able to understand them. That he was for a time
the dupe of adventurers and alchemists, such as the half-visionary
John Dee and the altogether unscrupulous Edward Kelley, was no unusual
experience in those days, when the dividing line between true science
and charlatanism was too indistinctly marked to be easily discernible.

The greatest of all the sovereigns of Shakespeare's time was Henry IV
of France, unquestionably the greatest of French kings, despite the
fact that the primacy has often been accorded to the Roi Soleil, Louis