Famous Queens - Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
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| Elizabeth I | |
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| Elizabeth I , "Darnley Portrait", c. 1575 | |
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| Reign | 17 November 1558 – 24 March 1603 |
| Coronation | 15 January 1559 |
| Predecessor | Mary I |
| Successor | James I |
| House | House of Tudor |
| Father | Henry VIII |
| Mother | Anne Boleyn |
| Born | 7 September 1533 Greenwich, England |
| Died | 24 March 1603 (aged 69) Richmond, England |
| Burial | Westminster Abbey |
| Signature |  |
Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called the Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed three years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her brother, Edward VI, cut her out of the succession. His will was set aside, and in 1558 Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, the Catholic Mary I, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.
Elizabeth set out to rule by good counsel,[1] and she depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first moves as queen was to support the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement held firm throughout her reign and later evolved into today's Church of England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry, but despite several petitions from parliament, she never did. The reasons for this choice are unknown, and they have been much debated. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity, and a cult grew up around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day.
In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and siblings.[2] One of her mottoes was "video et taceo" ("I see, and say nothing").[3] This strategy, viewed with impatience by her counsellors, often saved her from political and marital misalliances. Though Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs and only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France and Ireland, the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588 associated her name forever with what is popularly viewed as one of the greatest victories in English history. Within 20 years of her death, she was being celebrated as the ruler of a golden age, an image that retains its hold on the English people. Elizabeth's reign is known as the Elizabethan era, famous above all for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Francis Drake.
Historians tend to be more cautious in their assessment. They often depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered,[4] sometimes indecisive ruler,[5] who enjoyed more than her share of luck. Towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity to the point where many of her subjects were relieved at her death. Elizabeth is acknowledged as a charismatic performer and a dogged survivor, in an age when government was ramshackle and limited and when monarchs in neighbouring countries faced internal problems that jeopardised their thrones. Such was the case with Elizabeth's rival, Mary I, Queen of Scots, whom she imprisoned in 1568 and eventually had executed in 1587. After the short reigns of Elizabeth's brother and sister, her 44 years on the throne provided valuable stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity.[2]
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Early life
Elizabeth was born in Greenwich Palace in the Chamber of Virgins on 7 September 1533 between three and four o'clock in the afternoon[6] and named after both her paternal and maternal grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard.[7] She was the second child of Henry VIII of England to survive infancy; her mother was Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn. At birth, Elizabeth was the heiress presumptive to the throne of England. Her older half-sister, Mary, had lost her position as legitimate heir when Henry annulled his marriage to Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry Anne.[8][9] King Henry VIII had desperately wanted a legitimate son, to ensure the Tudor succession. Anne had been crowned with St. Edward's crown, unlike any other queen consort, while carrying Elizabeth. Historian Alice Hunt has suggested that this was done because Anne's pregnancy was visible at the moment of coronation and she was carrying an heir who was presumed to be male.[10] After Elizabeth's birth, Queen Anne failed to provide a male heir. She suffered at least two miscarriages, one in 1534 and another at the beginning of 1536. On 2 May 1536, she was arrested and imprisoned. Hastily convicted on trumped-up charges, she was beheaded on 19 May 1536.[11][12]
Elizabeth, who was 2 years 8 months old at the time, was declared illegitimate and deprived of the title of princess.[13] Eleven days after Anne Boleyn's death, Henry married Jane Seymour,[14] who died 12 days after the birth of their son, Prince Edward. Elizabeth was placed in Edward's household and carried the chrisom, or baptismal cloth, at his christening.[15]
Elizabeth's first Lady Mistress, Lady Margaret Bryan, wrote that she was “as toward a child and as gentle of conditions as ever I knew any in my life”.[17] By the autumn of 1537, Elizabeth was in the care of Blanche Herbert, Lady Troy who remained her Lady Mistress until her retirement in late 1545 or early 1546.[18] Catherine Champernowne, better known by her later, married name of Catherine “Kat” Ashley, was appointed as Elizabeth's governess in 1537, and she remained Elizabeth’s friend until her death in 1565, when Blanche Parry succeeded her as Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber[19]. She clearly made a good job of Elizabeth’s early education: by the time William Grindal became her tutor in 1544, Elizabeth could write English, Latin, and Italian. Under Grindal, a talented and skillful tutor, she also progressed in French and Greek.[20] After Grindal died in 1548, Elizabeth received her education under Roger Ascham, a sympathetic teacher who believed that learning should be fun.[21] By the time her formal education ended in 1550, she was the best educated woman of her generation.[22]
Thomas Seymour
Henry VIII died in 1547, when Elizabeth was 13 years old, and was succeeded by her half brother, Edward VI. Catherine Parr, Henry's last wife, soon married Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, Edward VI's uncle and the brother of the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. The couple took Elizabeth into their household at Chelsea. There Elizabeth experienced an emotional crisis that some historians believe affected her for the rest of her life.[24] Seymour, approaching age 40 but having charm and "a powerful sex appeal",[24] engaged in romps and horseplay with the 14-year-old Elizabeth. These included entering her bedroom in his nightgown, tickling her and slapping her on the buttocks. After Catherine Parr discovered the pair in an embrace, she ended this state of affairs.[25][26] In May 1548, Elizabeth was sent away.[27]
Seymour continued scheming to control the royal family.[28][29] When Catherine Parr died of puerperal fever after childbirth on 5 September 1548, he renewed his attentions towards Elizabeth, intent on wedding her.[30] The details of his former behaviour towards Elizabeth emerged during an interrogation of Catherine Ashley and Thomas Parry, Elizabeth’s cofferer.[31] For his brother and the council, this was the last straw,[32] and in January 1549, Seymour was arrested on suspicion of plotting to marry Elizabeth and overthrow his brother. Elizabeth, living at Hatfield House, would admit nothing. Her stubbornness exasperated her interrogator, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who reported, "I do see it in her face that she is guilty".[32] Seymour was beheaded on 20 March 1549.
Queen Mary
Edward VI died, probably of tuberculosis, on 6 July 1553, aged 15. [33] His will swept aside the Succession to the Crown Act 1543, excluded both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession, and instead declared as his heir Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk.[34] Lady Jane was proclaimed queen by the Privy Council, but her support quickly crumbled, and she was deposed after reigning nine days.[35] Mary rode triumphantly into London, with Elizabeth at her side.[36]
The show of solidarity between the sisters did not last long. Mary, the country's first Queen Regnant, [37] was determined to crush the Protestant faith in which Elizabeth had been educated, and she ordered that everyone attend Mass. This included Elizabeth, who had to outwardly conform.[38] Mary's initial popularity ebbed away when it became known that she planned to marry Prince Philip of Spain, the son of Emperor Charles V.[39] Discontent spread rapidly through the country, and many looked to Elizabeth as a focus for their opposition to Mary's religious policies. In January and February 1554, uprisings broke out (known as Wyatt's rebellion) in several parts of England and Wales, led by Thomas Wyatt.[40]
Upon the collapse of the uprising, Elizabeth was brought to court and interrogated. On 18 March, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where Lady Jane Grey had been executed on 12 February to deter the rebels.[41] The terrified Elizabeth fervently protested her innocence.[42] Though it is unlikely that she had plotted with the rebels, some of them were known to have approached her. Mary's closest confidant, Charles V's ambassador Simon Renard, argued that her throne would never be safe while Elizabeth lived; and the Chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, worked to have Elizabeth put on trial.[43] Elizabeth's supporters in the government, including Lord Paget, convinced Mary to spare her sister in the absence of hard evidence against her. Instead, on 22 May, Elizabeth was moved from the Tower to Woodstock, where she was to spend almost a year under house arrest in the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield. Crowds cheered her all along the way.[44][45]
On 17 April 1555, Elizabeth was recalled to court to be closely attended during the final stages of Mary's apparent pregnancy. If Mary and her child died, Elizabeth would become queen. If, on the other hand, Mary gave birth to a healthy child, Elizabeth's chances of becoming queen would recede sharply.[44] When it became clear that Mary was not pregnant, no one believed any longer that she could have a child.[46] Elizabeth's succession seemed assured.[47] Even Philip, who became King of Spain in 1556, acknowledged the new political reality. From this time forward, he cultivated Elizabeth, preferring her to the likely alternative, Mary I, Queen of Scots, who was betrothed to the Dauphin of France.[48] When his wife fell ill in 1558, Philip sent the Count of Feria to consult with Elizabeth.[49] By October, Elizabeth was making plans for her government. On 6 November, Mary recognised Elizabeth as her heir.[50][51] Eleven days later, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne when Mary died at St. James's Palace on 17 November 1558.
Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth became queen at the age of 25. As her triumphal progress wound through the city on the eve of the coronation ceremony, she was welcomed wholeheartedly by the citizens and greeted by orations and pageants, most with a strong Protestant flavour. Elizabeth's open and gracious responses endeared her to the spectators, who were "wonderfully ravished".[54] The following day, 15 January 1559, Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster Abbey and anointed by the Catholic bishop of Carlisle. She was then presented for the people's acceptance, amidst a deafening noise of organs, fifes, trumpets, drums, and bells.[55]
On 20 November 1558, Elizabeth declared her intentions to her Council and other peers who had come to Hatfield to swear allegiance. The speech contains the first record of her often-used metaphor of the "two bodies": the body natural and the body politic:
My lords, the law of nature moves me to sorrow for my sister; the burden that is fallen upon me makes me amazed, and yet, considering I am God's creature, ordained to obey His appointment, I will thereto yield, desiring from the bottom of my heart that I may have assistance of His grace to be the minister of His heavenly will in this office now committed to me. And as I am but one body naturally considered, though by His permission a body politic to govern, so shall I desire you all...to be assistant to me, that I with my ruling and you with your service may make a good account to Almighty God and leave some comfort to our posterity on earth. I mean to direct all my actions by good advice and counsel.[56]
Religion
Unfortunately for historians, Elizabeth's personal religious convictions will never be definitely known. Her religious policy favoured pragmatism above all in dealing with three major concerns. The first concern was that of her legitimacy. Although she was technically illegitimate under both Protestant and Catholic law, her retroactively declared illegitimacy under the English church was not a serious bar compared to having never been legitimate as the Catholics claimed she was. Perhaps most importantly, the break with Rome made her legitimate in her own eyes. For this reason, it was never in serious doubt that Elizabeth would embrace at least nominal Protestantism.
Elizabeth and her advisors perceived the threat of a Catholic crusade against heretical England. Elizabeth therefore sought a Protestant solution that would not offend Catholics too greatly while addressing the desires of English Protestants; she would not tolerate the more radical Puritans though, who were pushing for far-reaching reforms.[57] As a result, the parliament of 1559 started to legislate for a church based on the Protestant settlement of Edward VI, with the monarch as its head, but with many superficially Catholic elements, such as priestly vestments.[58]
The House of Commons backed the proposals strongly, but the bill of supremacy met opposition in the House of Lords, particularly from the bishops. Elizabeth was fortunate that many bishoprics were vacant at the time, including the Archbishopric of Canterbury.[59][60]
This enabled supporters amongst peers to outvote the bishops and conservative peers. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was forced to accept the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England rather than the more contentious title of Supreme Head, which many thought unacceptable for a woman to bear. The new Act of Supremacy became law on 8 May 1559. All public officials were to swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch as the supreme governor or risk disqualification from office; the heresy laws were repealed, to avoid a repeat of the persecution of dissenters practised by Mary. At the same time, a new Act of Uniformity was passed, which made attendance at church and the use of an adapted version of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer compulsory, though the penalties for recusancy, or failure to attend and conform, were not extreme.[61]
Marriage question
From the start of Elizabeth's reign, the question arose whom she would marry. She never married, and the reasons for this are not clear. Historians have speculated that Thomas Seymour had put her off sexual relationships, or that she knew herself to be infertile.[62][63] Until bearing a child became impossible, she considered several suitors. Her last courtship, ending in 1581 when she was aged 48, was with François, Duke of Anjou, 22 years her junior. Elizabeth had no need of a man's help to govern, and marrying risked a loss of control or of foreign interference in her affairs, as had happened to her sister Mary. On the other hand, marriage offered the chance of an heir.[64]
Lord Robert Dudley
Elizabeth often received offers of marriage, but she only seriously considered three or four suitors for any length of time. Of these, her childhood friend Lord Robert Dudley probably came closest. Early in 1559, Elizabeth's friendship with the married Dudley turned to love. Their intimacy soon was talk in court and country and abroad.[65] It was also said that Amy Robsart, his wife, was suffering from a "malady in one of her breasts",[66] and half a year later, that Lord Robert and the Queen had a "secret understanding" to marry after Amy would at last have been "sent into eternity".[67] Yet this was not a welcome idea: "There is not a man who does not cry out on him and her with indignation...she will marry none but the favoured Robert", the Spanish ambassador described the situation at the beginning of 1560.[68] Accordingly, when Dudley's wife died in September of the same year from a fall from a flight of stairs, a great scandal arose.[69] For a time, Elizabeth seriously considered marrying Dudley; but William Cecil, Nicholas Throckmorton, and other politicians were very alarmed and made their disapproval unmistakably clear.[70] The opposition was so overwhelming, that there were even rumours that the nobility would rise if the marriage took place.[71]
Despite several other marriage projects, Dudley was regarded as a serious candidate for nearly another decade.[73] Elizabeth encouraged him in his suit, remaining extremely jealous of his affections, even in case she never meant to marry him herself.[74] Finally, after Dudley, whom she had created Earl of Leicester in 1564, had remarried in 1578, the queen reacted with repeated scenes of displeasure towards him for having done so.[75] His wife had to cope with the queen's lifelong hatred.[76] Nevertheless, Dudley retained a special place in her heart. After Elizabeth's death, a note from him, who had died in 1588 shortly after the Armada, was found among her most personal belongings, marked "his last letter" in her handwriting.[77]
Political aspects
Elizabeth kept the marriage question open but often only as a diplomatic ploy.[78] Parliament repeatedly petitioned her to marry, but she always answered evasively.[79] In 1563, she told an imperial envoy: "If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married".[78] In the same year, following Elizabeth's illness with smallpox, the succession question became a heated issue. Parliament urged the queen to marry or nominate an heir, to prevent a civil war upon her death. She refused to do either. In April, she prorogued the Parliament, which did not reconvene until she needed its support to raise taxes in 1566. The House of Commons threatened to withhold funds until she agreed to provide for the succession. In 1566, Sir Robert Bell boldly pursued the issue despite Elizabeth's command to desist and became the target of her anger, saying, "Mr. Bell with his complices must needs prefer their speeches to the upper house to have you my lords, consent with them, whereby you were seduced, and of simplicity did assent unto it."[80] In 1566, she confided to the Spanish ambassador that if she could find a way to settle the succession without marrying, she would do so. By 1570, senior figures in the government privately accepted that Elizabeth would never marry or name a successor. William Cecil was already seeking solutions to the succession problem.[78] For this stance, as for her failure to marry, she was often accused of irresponsibility.[81] Elizabeth's silence strengthened her own political security: she knew that if she named an heir, her throne would be vulnerable to a coup.[82]
Elizabeth's unmarried status inspired a cult of virginity. In poetry and portraiture, she was depicted as a virgin or a goddess or both, not as a normal woman.[83] At first, only Elizabeth made a virtue of her virginity: in 1559, she told the Commons, "And, in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin".[83] Later on, particularly after 1578, poets and writers took up the theme and turned it into an iconography that exalted Elizabeth. In an age of metaphors and conceits, she was portrayed as married to her kingdom and subjects, under divine protection. In 1599, Elizabeth spoke of "all my husbands, my good people".[84]
Foreign policy
Apart from the Dudley courtship, Elizabeth treated the marriage issue as an aspect of foreign policy.[86] Though she turned down Philip II's own offer in 1559, she negotiated for several years to marry his cousin Archduke Charles of Austria. Relations with the Habsburgs deteriorated by 1568. Elizabeth then considered marriage to two French Valois princes in turn, first Henri, Duke of Anjou, and later, from 1572 to 1581, his brother François, Duke of Anjou.[87] This last proposal was tied to a planned alliance against Spanish control of the Southern Netherlands.[88] Elizabeth seems to have taken the courtship seriously for a time, and wore a frog-shaped earring that Anjou had sent her.[89]
Elizabeth's foreign policy was largely defensive. The exception was the disastrous occupation of Le Havre from October 1562 to June 1563, when Elizabeth's Huguenot allies joined with the Catholics to retake the port. Elizabeth had intended to exchange Le Havre for Calais, retaken by France in January 1558.[90] She sent troops into Scotland in 1560 to prevent the French using it as a base.[91] In 1585, she signed the Treaty of Nonsuch with the Dutch to block the Spanish threat to England.[92] Only through the activities of her fleets did Elizabeth pursue an aggressive policy. This paid off in the war against Spain, 80% of which was fought at sea.[93] She knighted Francis Drake after his circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580, and he won fame for his raids on Spanish ports and fleets. An element of pi