[269] See particularly the two beginning on pp. 413 and 423. A similar remark may be made in relation to the “Corona Trágica,” The Tragic Crown, which he published in 1627, on the history and fate of the unhappy Mary of Scotland, who had perished just forty years before.[270] It is intended to be a religious epic, and fills five books of octave stanzas. But it is, in fact, merely a specimen of intolerant controversy. Mary is represented as a pure and glorious martyr to the Catholic faith, while Elizabeth is alternately called a Jezebel and an Athaliah, whom it was a doubtful merit in Philip the Second to have spared, when, as king-consort of England, he had her life in his power.[271] In other respects it is a dull poem; beginning with an account of Mary’s previous history, as related by herself to her women in prison, and ending with her death. But it savors throughout of its author’s sympathy with the religious spirit of his age and country;--a spirit, it should be remembered, which made the Inquisition what it was. [270] It is in Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. [271] The atrocious passage is on p. 5. In an epistle, which he addressed to Ovando, the Maltese envoy, and published at the end of the “Laurel de Apolo,” (Madrid, 1630, 4to, f. 118), he gives an account of this poem, and says he wrote it in the country, where “the soul in solitude labors more gently and easily!” The Corona Trágica was, however, perhaps on this very account, thought worthy of being dedicated to Pope Urban the Eighth, who had himself written an epitaph on the unfortunate Mary of Scotland, which Lope, in courtly phrase, declared was “beatifying her in prophecy.” The flattery was well received. Urban sent the poet in return a complimentary letter; gave him a degree of Doctor in Divinity, and the cross of the Order of Saint John; and appointed him to the honorary places of Fiscal in the Apostolic Chamber and Notary of the Roman Archives. The measure of his ecclesiastical honors was now full.