“[Froude’s] unsurpassable description of the long duel between [Elizabeth] and Mary Stuart is as fascinating as fiction. He makes Elizabeth and Mary live — I feel as if I knew them both, intimately. It is odd – but I have always been on Elizabeth’s side in that famous struggle … I don’t think I would have liked Elizabeth at all in the flesh. Nevertheless, I have always been on her side.
They certainly had colorful sovereigns in those days. What a difference between the Tudors and ‘Farmer George’. What a contrast between ‘Queen Bess’ and ‘Victoria’.
It was not a cheerful book, but in my present mood I don’t care for cheerful books … Poor Mary … I think she was to be pitied. How very unhappy she was! If she had been happier, she might have been kinder.”
