_Addresses concerning the succession._--There was no peril more alarming to this kingdom during the queen's reign than the precariousness of her life--a thread whereon its tranquillity, if not its religion and independence, was suspended. Hence the Commons felt it an imperious duty not only to recommend her to marry, but, when this was delayed, to solicit that some limitations of the Crown might be enacted, in failure of her issue. The former request she evaded without ever manifesting much displeasure, though not sparing a hint that it was a little beyond the province of parliament. Upon the last occasion, indeed, that it was preferred, namely, by the speaker in 1575, she gave what from any other woman must have appeared an assent, and almost a promise. But about declaring the succession she was always very sensible. Through a policy not perhaps entirely selfish, and certainly not erroneous on selfish principles, she was determined never to pronounce among the possible competitors for the throne. Least of all could she brook the intermeddling of parliament in such a concern. The Commons first took up this business in 1562, when there had begun to be much debate in the nation about the opposite titles of the Queen of Scots and Lady Catherine Grey; and especially in consequence of a dangerous sickness the queen had just experienced, and which is said to have been the cause of summoning parliament. Their language is wary, praying her only by "proclamation of certainty already provided, if any such be," alluding to the will of Henry VIII., "or else by limitations of certainty, if none be, to provide a most gracious remedy in this great necessity;"[401] offering at the same time to concur in provisions to guarantee her personal safety against any one who might be limited in remainder. Elizabeth gave them a tolerably courteous answer, though not without some intimation of her dislike to this address.[402] But at their next meeting, which was not till 1566, the hope of her own marriage having grown fainter, and the circumstances of the kingdom still more powerfully demanding some security, both houses of parliament united, with a boldness of which there had perhaps been no example for more than a hundred years, to overcome her repugnance. Some of her own council among the peers are said to have asserted in their places that the queen ought to be obliged to take a husband, or that a successor should be declared by parliament against her will. She was charged with a disregard to the state and to posterity. She would prove, in the uncourtly phrase of some sturdy members of the lower house, a step-mother to her country, as being seemingly desirous that England, which lived as it were in her, should rather expire with than survive her; that kings can only gain the affections of their subjects by providing for their welfare both while they live and after their deaths; nor did any but princes hated by their subjects, or faint-hearted women,