Attached to the old religion, though neither bigots nor zealots, they had escaped the violence of bluff Harry, when he turned Protestant for Bullen's eyes; and had, though something to leeward of her favor, as lukewarm Romanists and no lovers of the Spaniard, passed safely through the ordeal of Mary's cruel reign. But with the accession of the man-minded Elizabeth, the fortunes of the house revived for a while. It was the policy of that great and gracious queen to gather around her all that were brave, honest, and manly in her realm, without regard to family creeds, or family traditions. Claiming descent as much from one as from the other of the rival houses of Lancaster and York, loyalty to the one was no more offence to her clear eyes than good faith to the other. While loyalty to what he honestly believed to be the true sovereign house, was the strongest recommendation to her favor in each and every subject. The Fitz-Henry, therefore, of her day, a young and gallant soldier, who visited the shores of the New World with Cavendish and Raleigh, fought for his native land, although a Catholic, against the terrible armada of the Most Catholic King, with Drake, and Frobisher and Howard, waged war in the Low Countries, and narrowly missed death at Tutphen by Philip Sidney's side, stood as high in the favor of his queen as in the estimation of all good and honorable men. It is true, when the base and odious James succeeded to the throne of the lion-queen, and substituted mean and loathsome king-craft for frank and open English policy, the gray-haired soldier, navigator, statesman--for he had shone in each capacity--retired, as his ancestors had done before him, during the reigns of the seventh and eighth Henrys, to the peaceful shades and innocent pleasures of Ditton-in-the-Dale. So true, however, was he to the time-honored principles of his high race, so loyally did he bring up his son, so firmly did he strengthen his youthful mind with all maxims, and all laws of honor, linking the loyal subject to the rightful king, that no sooner had the troubles broken out between the misguided monarch and his rebellious Parliament--although the veteran of Elizabeth had fallen asleep long before, full of years and honors--than his young heir, Osborn Fitz-Henry, displayed the cognizance of his old house, mustered his tenantry, and set foot in stirrup, well nigh the first, to withdraw it the very last, of the adherents of the hapless Charles. So long did he resist in arms, so pertinaciously did he uphold the authority of the first Charles, so early did he rise again in behalf of the second, that he was noted by the Parliament as an incorrigible and most desperate malignant; and, had it not been that, by his gallantry in the field, and his humanity when the strife was ended, he had won the personal good-will of Cromwell, it is most likely that it would have gone hard with his fortunes if not with his life.