her, and her person, upon suspicion and surmises only, was seized and hurried from place to place: she was imprisoned, and most inhumanly treated; but at last, by the interposition of Philip, Mary's husband, released from imprisonment, and in a measure freed from persecution the remainder of her sister's life. In gratitude for this piece of service, she had his picture placed by her bed-side, and kept it there to the end of her life, as an acknowledgment of gratitude to her preserver.
A priest, during her persecution, once pressing her to declare her opinion concerning the bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament, she cautiously answered him in these lines:
'Twas God the word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what his word did make it,
That I believe and take it.
Mary dying 1558, Elizabeth ascended the throne; and when she had settled the perplexed affairs of the kingdom, which had given a long interruption to her studies, Ascham informs us, that she began to renew them under his care and inspection, and tells the young gentlemen of England, in his Schoolmaster, "It was their shame, that one maid should go beyond them all in excellency of learning and knowledge of divers tongues. Point forth," says he "six of the best given gentlemen of this court, and all they put together shew not so much good-will, spend not so much time, bestow not so many hours daily, orderly, and constantly, for the increase of learning and knowledge, as doth the queen's majesty herself." And the famous Scaliger tells us, that she spoke five languages, and knew more than all the great men then living.
