Both she and her sister, at their coronations, were girt with the sword of State, and invested with the spurs of knighthood, to show that they were military as well as civil rulers. Fortunately for her country, and for herself, Elizabeth lived and died a maiden Queen. The bitter consequences of her sister’s Spanish alliance taught her the importance of independence as a ruler. Whatever we may individually think of her character, all must allow her reign to have been in every way the most brilliant in the history of our country, only equalled in our own times by that of a Matron Queen, who has held the reins of Government in her own hand and whose husband came to the land but as Prince Consort. Queen Anne’s reign is also worthy of note, and can bear comparison with that of most Kings, for its military successes, and its literary activities. =Queens Regent.=—Selden argues against Bodin of Anjou, who upheld the Salic Law, “are not discretion and strength, courage, and the arts of Government more to be desired and required in those who have the tuition of kings in their minority, than in the kings themselves till they are come of age?” He considers the French use of Queens as Regents to be destructive of their own theories. Queens as Regent-Tutors of young kings have not held the same position in England as they did in France or in Scotland. But as governing Regents and Viceroys they have often done good service. William of Normandy more than once left the country in charge of his Queen. Richard I., by commission, appointed his mother, Eleanor, to be Regent of the Kingdom in his absence, and wrote to her to find the money for his ransom when imprisoned abroad. She sat as Judge in the Curia Regis, taking her seat on the King’s Bench by right of her office. She granted concessions to the inhabitants of Oléron (to women as to men) even down to the reign of John (1 John; _see_ “Rymer’s Fœdera”). Edward III. found his Queen Philippa a Queen Regent worthy of himself. Henry V. appointed his mother as Regent in his absence, and even Henry VIII., when he went abroad on his last French War, left his Queen, Catherine Parr, Governor of the Kingdom. I have gone through their correspondence in the Public Record Office, and it bears ample testimony to her capability and his trust in her judgment. In “Olive _versus_ Ingram,” 1739, it is noted, “Queen Caroline was once appointed Regentor of the Kingdom.” It was with little less than Vice Regal splendour and power that Joan, Dowager Countess of Pembroke, ruled the Palatinate for nine years in the reign of Edward I.; or Isabel de Burgo in that of Edward II., or Agnes de Hastings in that of Edward III.; ruling in the stead of their sons until the youths attained majority at the age of twenty-one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV. NOBLEWOMEN. “Noblesse Oblige.”