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Brooks, Elbridge Streeter, 1846-1902

"Historic Girls"

"
Lord Seymour of Sudleye, was beheaded for treason on Tower Hill,
and others, implicated in his plots, were variously punished; but
even "great policy" cannot squeeze a lie out of the truth, and
Elizabeth was finally declared free of the stain of treason.
Experience, which is a hard teacher, often brings to light the
best that is in us. It was so in this case. For, as one writer
says: "The long and harassing ordeal disclosed the splendid
courage, the reticence, the rare discretion, which were to carry
the Princess through many an awful peril in the years to come.
Probably no event of her early girlhood went so far toward making
a woman of Elizabeth as did this miserable affair."
Within ten years thereafter the Lady Elizabeth ascended the
throne of England. Those ten years covered many strange events,
many varying fortunes--the death of her brother, the boy King
Edward, the sad tragedy of Lady Jane Grey, Wyatt's rebellion, the
tanner's revolt, and all the long horror of the reign of "Bloody
Mary." You may read of all this in history, and may see how,
through it all, the young princess grew still more firm of will,
more self-reliant, wise, and strong, developing all those
peculiar qualities that helped to make her England's greatest
queen, and one of the most wonderful women in history.


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