she happened to be eating roast goose for dinner. From that day to this many people have kept up the custom of dining upon goose at Michaelmas. So every one but a goose ought to remember the destruction of the Spanish Armada with delight.

I said that Elizabeth was vain; and, as she grew older, she liked nothing more than to have people constantly telling her how good, and clever, and beautiful she was. One of her favourite flatterers was the Earl of Leicester. She used to go and stay with him, at his beautiful castle of Kenilworth, where he spent enormous sums in receiving her with great pomp. Plays used to be acted before her, in which the actors all had to make long speeches, praising her for many virtues, and for much beauty.

After a time the queen got rather tired of Leicester, and took a fancy to a handsome young lad, the Earl of Essex. Essex was a pleasant, but rather silly boy; and Elizabeth, thinking it likely that he might, from youth and giddiness, get into some scrapes, gave him a ring, and said to him, "If ever you get into trouble, send me that ring, and I will help you."

Elizabeth soon grew so fond of her new favourite that she sent him to Ireland to govern the people there. Essex had not sense enough for such a difficult position, and he made so many blunders that he was recalled to England. There he got into great disgrace and trouble, and was sentenced to be beheaded. Elizabeth did not worry herself much about him, for every day she expected him to send her the ring. But it did not come, and the day fixed for the execution did. Elizabeth decided that

Essex was too proud to send the ring, and she would not ask for it, and so he was put to death.

A year afterwards the Countess of Nottingham, an old lady, being on her death-bed, sent to ask the queen to visit her. Elizabeth went, and the Countess confessed that Essex had asked her to give the ring to the queen, and that she had not done so because her husband and Essex were not on good terms. The queen shook the dying lady violently, exclaiming, “God may forgive you, but I never can," and then rushed from the room and went to her palace. There she lay upon the floor for several days, refusing all food and comfort of any sort, and died on the 24th March, 1603, in the seventieth year of her age, having reigned nearly fortyfive years.

In this reign potatoes and tobacco were first brought to England, and the first English newspaper printed. How different a place England would be now, if we had no potatoes, no tobacco, and no papers!

CHAPTER XXVI.

JAMES I., 1603-1625.

Married Anne of Denmark.

Children-Ilenry, Charles, and one daughter, Elizabeth, who was the grandmother of George I.

Principal Event:-Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England. IF Queen Elizabeth had had any children it is probable that Scotland and England would never have been ruled by the same king. But her nearest relation was James, King of Scotland, the son of the Queen of Scots, who

had been beheaded.

And what sort of a man was this

first King of England, Scotland, and Ireland? He was rather good, but thought himself better than he was.

He

was rather clever, but not quite as clever as he believed himself to be. When he was a boy his tutor was accused of having made him a pedant—that is, a rather dry sort of scholar, fond of very hard words. The tutor replied, "It was the best he could make of him."

James, before he became King of England, had tried to get the Scotch to belong to the English Church, and to have bishops. However, the Scotch would not hear of it, and so James pretended that he was quite as well pleased as if he had got his way, and at a meeting of the Church Assembly said he praised God that he was king of the sincerest Kirk in the world. He was a superstitious man, and believed in witchcraft. He ordered many people to be killed who were accused of it.

I wonder if you know what that long word superstitious means? And I wonder still more whether there is a superstitious boy or girl in the class? A superstitious person means one who will easily believe any kind of silly story, like the tales told by fortune-tellers. There are

many superstitious people in England still, but not as many as there were. Superstitious people believe in charms and warnings, and lucky and unlucky days. Now the more ignorant people are, the more superstitious they are likely to be.

In James's reign anything out of the common way was put down to witchcraft. If a woman's children were ill, instead of thinking that they had eaten too much, or had caught cold, she would say that some

one had bewitched them, and perhaps some innocent old woman would be called a witch and thrown into a pond. People are not quite so foolish nowadays, but there is a good deal of nonsense believed still. There are folks who are afraid to go through a churchyard at night, or who fancy if they hear a cricket chirp that it is a sign that some one in the house is going to die.

But to return to James. He did not make a very good king. He was over anxious for power and too fond of his own way. In his reign a most wicked plot was made to blow up the king and all the men in the Houses of Parliament. I have no doubt that many of you sing once a year

"Remember, remember,
The fifth of November,"

and are glad of an excuse for a holiday, and fireworks, and a bonfire, let alone the fun of burning a guy. But, my dear friends, you cannot remember a story which you never heard! So listen now, and you will be able to sing your chorus next November all the better.

It was determined by some wicked people, as I said, to put the king and all his chief advisers to death. I do not know who first thought of gunpowder, but at last it was settled that barrels of it should be put under the Houses of Parliament on a certain day, when it was known that the king, his family, and most of the members of the House would be present. The plan was to set these barrels on fire, and thus to blow up the Houses of Par

liament and every one inside them.

Perhaps you think this plot so terribly wicked that in these days there is no danger of the like. But

when people are blinded by passion there is no saying what they will do. When the Fenians, not long ago, tried to blow up Clerkenwell Prison, they were not so very unlike the plotters of James I.'s time. But the gunpowder plot was discovered; for a gentleman who was going to the House received a letter, he did not know from whom, for it was not signed, warning him that there would be secret, sudden danger in the House.

He took the letter to the king. James read it, considered what it could mean, and suddenly thought of gunpowder. It was settled that the vaults under the Houses should be searched. Some men were sent off to do this, and there they found Guy Faux, a man employed by the plotters, waiting by the barrels with a lanthorn in his hand, ready to set light to the powder. And this is why you have burned Guy Faux from that day to this, or at least your fathers and great-grandfathers have. James reigned twenty-two years.

In his reign the translation of the Bible was made which we now use.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHARLES I., 1625–1649.

Married Henrietta Maria of France.

Children :-Charles, James, Henry, and four daughters.

CHARLES seems to have been one of those people who, though generally anxious to do what is right, imagine that every one who does not quite agree with them is wicked.