great personages in history, the virgin queen, who by sheer force of character gained for herself the credit of all the grand achievements which her people effected in peace or war, whose name was held in something more than honour from Persia to Peru, from Russia to Algiers, who crushed the tremendous power of Spain, broke for ever the spiritual tyranny of Rome, and lifted England into the first rank among the kingdoms of the world.
[The materials for the biography of Elizabeth are very voluminous. Camden's Annals brought down to the end of 1588, was the first important historical account of the reign, and was published in 1615. It is said to have been undertaken at the suggestion of Lord Burghley. Bishop Francis Godwin's Annales of England are an extension and completion of Camden's and are at least as valuable. An English translation was published in folio by his son Morgan in 1639. Godwin was an intimate friend of Camden. The earliest life of the queen was that by Gregorio Leti who appears to have had access to some manuscript sources which have since then disappeared. The original edition was suppressed by authority. A French translation La Vie d'Elisabeth reine d'Angleterre was published in 2 vols, 12mo, Amsterdam 1694. Miss Strickland's Life, with all its shortcomings, is the best personal memoir of the queen which has yet appeared. M. Louis Wiesener's La Jeunesse d'Elisabeth d'Angleterre 1533-1558 (Paris 1878; translated into Englis by C. M. Yonge 1879), tells with care the story before she ascended to the throne. Mr. Froude's history of the reign is indispensible to the historian, though very unequal in parts. It is however, incomparably more trustworthy and thorough than the history of the three earlier reigns. Queen Elizabeth and her Times, by Thomas Wright, 2 vols. 8vo, 1838, is an attempt to give a picture of the reign from a large number of private letters printed for the first time from the originals in the British Museum and elsewhere. Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from the year 1581 till her death by Thomas Birch, D.D., 2 vols. 4to, 1754, are based upon the papers of Anthony Bacon and other original records. This is a work of prime importance for the latter half of the reign. Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia, first published in 1694 with the spurious Arcana Aulica, professing to be by Sir Francis Walsingham, contains lively sketches and anecdotes, which must be read with caution. The same is true of John Harrington's Brief View. Sir Dudley Digges's Compleat Ambassador, fol. 1655, is the great authority on all that concerns the Anjou marriage (1570-1581). The work is not his, but was published from papers found in Digges's library after his death. For the parliamentary history of the reign D'Ewes's Journals of the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth is invaluable. Nicholas's Progresses contains a rich mine of information on the habits and private life of the queen. The life of Walsingham is the only biography of any of the great statesmen of the reign which is still unwritten [see the sources for these in the volumes of this dictionary under Cecil, Davison, Devereux, Dudley]. Sir Harris Nicolas's Life of Sir Christopher Hatton (1847), Edwards's Life of Sir Walter Raleigh (2 vols, 1808), The Letter-books of Sir Amyas Paulet, Keeper of Mary Queen of Scots, edited by the Rev. John Morris S.J. (1874), deserve to be consulted, as do the many publications bearing upon this reign which have been issued by the Camden Society — The Letters of Elizabeth and James VI (1849), Walsingham's Chronicle (1876-7) Machyn's Diary and Manningham's Diary (1848) — from all of which some scraps of information have been derived. Tytler's England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary contains some curious notices of Elizabeth before she came to the throne. The Burghley, Hardwicke, Sadler, Sydney, and other state papers need only be named. Dr. Forbes's Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 2 vols. fol. 1740, is an important work, but not of much use to the biographer. Hallam's account of the reign in the Constitutional History is eminently candid and philosophical. Lingard's, though his bias might be supposed to warp his judgement, is a remarkable monument of his critical impartiality, and it may be doubted whether any more succinct and trustworthy history of the time has yet appeared. The Calendar of the MSS. at Hatfield House has only got as far as the year 1582, although two volumes have been printed. In the second part a large number of the Alençon love-letters are printed in extenso. The Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, 1509-1603 (2 vols.), is of occasional assistance. Motley's great works on the Revolt of the Netherlands and the Rise of the Dutch Republic are not quite as exhaustive as is generally assumed. For the French wars Martin is the chief authority. For all that concerns the treatment of the Romanists Tierney's edition of Dodd's Church History, with its valuable appendices of original documents, and the very careful Introduction to the Douay Diary, by Mr. Knox, may be referred to. See too One Generation of a Norfolk House, by the present writer, where a long list of authorities is given. For ecclesiastical matters in England Strype stands alone, and his volumes must always remain the great storehouse from which we must draw. But it is from the compilers of the Calendars of State Papers (Domestic) in the Record Office, and especially from Mrs. Everett Green's six volumes, that the chief information is to be derived. If the Lansdowne, Cotton, and Hurleian MSS. were calendared on the same scale, we should probably have at least another six volumes to consult. It is curious how very little the eighteen years' labours of the Hist. MSS. Commission have added to our knowledge of Elizabeth's reign, except, and the exception is a very large one, such new information as the Hatfield papers supply.]
