On the eastern side of Afghanistan lay Persia, and beyond Persia, to the west again, began the Turkish Empire. Between the Persians and these Ottoman Turks--Mahommedans both, but belonging to different sects--fighting went on with little pause, and with no result of any long duration. Persia's position was difficult, for on the eastern border she was always {68} subject to attack from the Moguls. That she kept her independence is due in part doubtless to the valour of her soldiers, but also, in large part, to the engagements of the Moguls with India and of the Turks with their European neighbours on land and sea. Even the heavy defeat of the Turkish navy at Lepanto by no means put an end to their activities in the Mediterranean. In 1573, two years after that battle, they lost Tunis; but were still strong enough to regain that valuable port the very next year. {69} CHAPTER V THE WARS OF RELIGION Elizabeth died in 1603, and there was no descendant of Henry VIII. to inherit the throne. But Henry VII.'s daughter had married the King of Scotland, and a grandson of Henry VII. now held the Scottish Crown with the title of James VI. On the death of Elizabeth he became rightful hereditary King of England also, with the title of James I. And now it might indeed seem as if the United Kingdom was about to enter upon years of peace and glory. Elizabeth's prudence and the valour of her seamen had won her military fame. Her alliance was sought by princes as far off as the Tsar of Russia and the Sophy, as the ruler was called, of Persia. She had possessions in India, far away in the East, in America far in the West. For the first time in her story she had Scotland as a second self, instead of a constant enemy on her very border. Ireland appeared to be subjugated. And she had no possessions on the Continent to draw her into troubles with France. This hopeful prospect was soon clouded over owing, in large measure, to the folly of the Stuart kings, as that dynasty was called of which the Scottish James was the first. And yet, if it had not been for their folly, and also for their weakness, it is possible that England might have had to suffer even greater trials than did befall her, by reason of the despotic power which had been won for the Crown by Henry VIII, {70} and his great ministers Wolsey and Cromwell. But before that power could be broken, and the people could regain the rights that legally were theirs under the provisions of Magna Carta, the country had to suffer miserably through civil war and one of the kings had to lose his head on the executioner's block.