Elizabeth I

I

Introduction

Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Queen of England and Ireland (1558-1603), and the last ruler of the Tudor dynasty. She succeeded her sister, Mary Tudor, on November 17, 1558. Elizabeth chose not to marry, and declined to settle the succession. Her reign was punctuated by clashes with Parliament over the succession, and her reluctance to deal with Mary, Queen of Scots. Within two decades of Elizabeth’s death, the Elizabethan period had come to be known as a “golden age”, a period of great literary achievements, the age of William Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser, but, at the time, the regime often felt beleaguered at home and abroad. Internally, Elizabethan England was marked by religious divisions, as “official” Protestantism was consolidated in the local communities, and there was intense commercial rivalry and expansion abroad. The Religious Settlement of 1559 was the defining moment of the English Reformation, while the late 1580s and the 1590s were dominated by war with Spain and the French Catholic League, and by rebellion in Ireland. The iconography associated with the Queen herself, however, as Gloriana and the Virgin Queen, together with the length of her reign, has made her one of the most dominant characters of British history, a source of fascination to historians and the general public alike.

II

Parentage, Childhood, and Early Life

Elizabeth was born at Greenwich on September 7, 1533. She was the daughter of Henry VIII, by his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She was baptized at the Church of the Grey Friars at Greenwich and her godfather was Archbishop Cranmer. Her governess was Margaret, Lady Bryan, the mother of Sir Francis Bryan, a leading courtier, who had been Princess Mary's governess until she was six. Elizabeth spent much of her childhood in or around the court. During the Pilgrimage of Grace, the uprising resulting from Henry’s break with the papacy and the dissolution of the monasteries, she was with her father and sister at Windsor Castle. She was present on state occasions and at the reception of foreign ambassadors. At her brother, Prince Edward’s (later Edward VI) christening, she carried the chrisom, or baptismal robe, even though she herself had to be carried in the procession by Viscount Beauchamp.

Anne Boleyn was executed on May 19, 1536, and it has been claimed that this was an influence on Elizabeth's later decision not to marry. It is true that she revered her mother's memory, but she also adored and respected her father. Within two weeks of Anne’s execution, Henry took Jane Seymour as his third wife, and the Second Act of Succession declared Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Elizabeth was deprived of the title of Princess, and the throne was settled on the issue of Henry's marriage with Jane. On October 12, 1537, Prince Edward was born, and Jane Seymour died of post-natal complications 12 days later. In 1544, the Third Act of Succession restored Elizabeth to the succession after Edward and Mary, but did not formally reverse her bastardization, thereby leaving the matter open to question.

Henry's sixth wife was Catherine Parr, whom he married in July 1543. She was the recipient of Elizabeth's earliest surviving letter, written in Italian when she was ten years old. Catherine built a loving relationship with Elizabeth and Prince Edward, who spent much of their childhood together. She carefully supervised their education, engaging the best tutors she could find and even taking lessons to improve her own Latin. Elizabeth studied scripture and classical literature, as well as French and Italian. She learned to play the virginals. She began to speak extempore Latin and could still denounce an ambassador in that language when she was over 60. In 1544 she translated The Mirror or Glass of the Sinful Soul from French verse into English prose as a New Year's gift for her stepmother. The poem, which was on the subject of incest, spiritual and physical, was commonly set as a study text for aristocratic women, and Elizabeth worked from a version by Margaret of Navarre (Marguerite d’Angoulême), sister of Francis I. It is sometimes said that her choice of text reflected her distaste for matrimony, but there was nothing unusual about selecting this poem. Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother, had also made a translation in 1506.

Elizabeth was by now living at St James's or Whitehall, or more often at Hatfield, Hertford, or Ashridge. In September 1544, she was with Catherine Parr at Woking, and when plague broke out in London, her stepmother ordered that no one who had been in the capital should come to Woking for fear of carrying the infection. By this time, Edward had his own household, and it was on her frequent visits there that Elizabeth met Sir John Cheke, Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge University, who, with Dr Richard Cox and others, was a tutor to the prince. Cheke was the foremost classical scholar in England and an expert on the correct classical pronunciation of Greek. He wrote in a fine italic script, and was responsible for introducing this style of handwriting into England from Italy. Cheke immediately recognized Elizabeth's talent, and she was soon writing in the fine italic hand for which she has become renowned.

Cheke arranged for William Grindal, a scholar from St John's College, Cambridge University, to become her tutor. St John's was Cheke's college and a leading humanist centre. The connection was important, since it helped to bring about the appointment of William Cecil, Elizabeth's future steward, and later her chief minister, who was also a scholar at St John's and who married Cheke's sister as his first wife. Grindal was a pupil of Roger Ascham, the pre-eminent literary scholar of his day, though one who disliked Italian and Italian scholarship on the grounds that they were linked with Catholicism. Elizabeth's literary attainments now reached unusual heights. Grindal taught her at Cheshunt and Enfield, and it was at Enfield, in her brother's presence, that she received the news of her father's death on January 28, 1547.

III

The Young Princess

Elizabeth demanded Ascham as her tutor in 1548, when Grindal died of the plague. Ascham wrote to Jacob Sturm, rector of the Academy of Strasbourg (later Strasbourg University) and the translator of Aristotle's Rhetoric, that she showed 'dignity and gentleness' that were 'marvellous at her age'. Her mind had 'no womanly weakness'. Her industry was 'equal to that of a man and her memory retains what it quickly picks up'. She was as fluent in French and Italian as in English. She conversed 'readily and well in Latin, moderately in Greek'. As to her italic handwriting, 'nothing is more beautiful'. She 'delights as much in music as she is skilful in it'. In adornment, 'she is elegant rather than showy'.

Elizabeth's literary accomplishments were crucial to her character. As a female ruler in an age circumscribed by gender stereotypes that considered females to be subordinate to males and saw the notion of unmarried female rule as unnatural, it was essential to evoke an aura of 'majesty' (seen by contemporaries as an intrinsically male attribute), which Elizabeth did partly through royal iconography and partly through rhetorical techniques and the visual images that language conjured up in her audience. She harked back to the Athenian rhetorician, Isocrates, whose advice to the prince in To Nicoles was a humanist topic of study, highlighting in particular the passage that said: “Throughout all your life show that you value truth so highly that your word is more to be trusted than the oaths of other men.” Advocating this maxim to James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) in 1583, she claimed that the words of rulers served as badges or symbols of their authority. The inculcation of majesty required a charismatic personality, which Elizabeth was able to claim as 'supreme governor' of the Church of England after 1559, but to nothing like the same extent as Henry VIII. As a female ruler, something else was needed, which for Elizabeth was eloquence of speech. This is why she laboriously drafted her own official letters, and scripted her formal speeches to her privy counsellors and Parliaments, which she then pretended to deliver extempore. Like Ascham and her humanist tutors, she prized the values of 'virtue', “counsel”, “justice”, and 'moderation', which dominated classical literature. Following Cicero, she was a champion of patriotism and civic duty. In practice, she procrastinated in the face of political decisions, and misled or bullied her counsellors, but when she did so, it was for what she saw as the greater good of her country, the Protestant religion, and the welfare of her people as she conceptualized these goals. Her (male) privy counsellors frequently disagreed with her opinions, and could find her devious, petulant, and imperious. She, by contrast, represented herself as straightforward, honest, and bound by a higher duty to God, whose immediate deputy she was on earth. In the last resort, she invoked her royal prerogative as a defence against criticism, and ordered her counsellors and Parliaments not to meddle in 'matters of state', a posture that protected her regality, even when she was demonstrably in the wrong, as in the debates over the succession in the 1560s and 1580s, and over grants of monopolies in 1601.

In appearance, Elizabeth was a moderately tall, attractive woman with bright eyes and golden hair. The Venetian ambassador reported that 'her face is comely rather than handsome, but she is tall and well formed, with a good skin'. Her complexion was olive. She had sharp eyes. The Spanish ambassador was struck by her directness. 'She is a very vain and clever woman. She must have been thoroughly schooled in the manner in which her father conducted his affairs… She is determined to be governed by no one.' The earliest surviving portrait of Elizabeth depicts her full length, immaculately dressed in a crimson robe with an embroidered kirtle and sleeves in cloth of gold, bedecked with jewellery, and with confident features. In her own letter to Edward of May 15, 1547, which accompanied this or another portrait of herself, she said: 'For the face, I grant, I might well blush to offer, but the mind I shall never be ashamed to present.'

IV

Life at Court and Relations with Mary

Within a few months of Edward VI's accession, Catherine Parr was married to Thomas Seymour, brother of Lord Protector Somerset, by whom she had been courted before attracting the attention of Henry VIII. Since Elizabeth was living in Catherine's household, Seymour became her stepfather, but rumours began to circulate that he had all along wanted to marry Elizabeth and would have preferred her to Catherine. This might not have mattered but for further gossip that centred on bedroom frolics, which Elizabeth denied had involved any intimacy and which Seymour also claimed had been innocent. To protect her reputation, Catherine sent Elizabeth away to Sir Anthony Denny's house at Cheshunt in the summer of 1548. The matter took a dangerous turn when Catherine died in childbirth in September and Seymour sought to marry Elizabeth—this at the same time that he was believed to be building a faction at court and in the country and plotting a coup against his brother.

On January 17, 1549, Seymour was arrested and charged with 33 articles of high treason. He was attainted in Parliament and executed on March 20. A lengthy investigation took place in which Elizabeth and her entire household, now resident at Hatfield, were interrogated. Her principal gentlewoman and her cofferer were brought to London and committed to the Tower of London. Elizabeth was herself suspected. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt was sent to Hatfield, where he tried to trap her into an admission of guilt. The attempt failed, and Tyrwhitt told Protector Somerset: 'She hath a very good wit, and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy.' The accusation was only dropped when Seymour went to the execution block.

Elizabeth spent the remainder of Edward VI's reign at Hatfield or Ashridge, and by 1551 had resumed her visits to court. She wrote regularly to Edward, but her experiences had left her wiser, if unscathed. She stood aloof from the Duke of Northumberland's attempt to exclude her sister, Mary, from the throne in favour of Lady Jane Grey in the summer of 1553 and wrote congratulating Mary on the plot's collapse. On July 29, Elizabeth moved to London. She rode out to meet her sister, and at Mary's ceremonial entry into London took her place in the procession immediately behind the new queen. At the coronation, she carried her sister's train, and swore the oath of allegiance, wearing a robe of crimson velvet trimmed with ermine.

But Mary was resolutely Catholic. She renounced the royal supremacy and reversed the break with Rome. Catholic worship was restored and Cardinal Pole brought back from exile in Italy to become Archbishop of Canterbury and papal legate in England. Elizabeth was not an extreme Protestant or Calvinist like the religious exiles who fled England for Strasbourg, Basel, Geneva, and elsewhere during Mary's reign, but she rejected the pope and the Catholic Mass. Mary exerted constant pressure on her sister to attend Mass and undertake a full conversion to Catholicism, but Elizabeth prevaricated, attending Mass infrequently and pleading that she knew so little of the Catholic faith because their father had provided her with tutors who had brought her up in the new doctrines.

Elizabeth lived in fear of her life during Mary's reign. The threat materialized in 1554 when Sir Thomas Wyatt rebelled, and led an army from Kent towards Southwark and London. The revolt failed after Wyatt found Ludgate shut against him. The citizens, fearing a sack of the city, had barred the gates. Bishop Gardiner believed that it had been Wyatt's intention to put Elizabeth on the throne. She was brought from Ashridge to London in a litter (she was said to be terrified) and kept under guard for a month. She was then sent to the Tower of London. She wrote to Mary protesting her innocence and pleading for a personal interview. The letter ended: 'I humbly crave but only one word of answer from yourself', whereupon Elizabeth drew diagonal lines across the remainder of the paper, so that no one could add a forged postscript.

Mary married Philip, son of the emperor Charles V, of the royal family of Habsburg, and heir to the Spanish throne, at Winchester Cathedral on July 25, 1554. The Spanish and English nobility were carefully intermingled in order of their degrees on the steps of the throne, but Elizabeth was not present. She had been held in the Tower for two months and then put under house arrest at Woodstock, where she was kept for nearly a year. Sir William Paget, King Philip's most trusted privy counsellor, protected her interest at court to the best of his ability, but in April 1555, Elizabeth suddenly found an ally in Philip himself. Mary was rumoured (falsely) to be pregnant, and Philip thought that if she died in childbirth, it would serve Habsburg policy better for the throne to pass to Elizabeth than to the Scottish claimant, Mary Stuart (later known as Mary, Queen of Scots), who was betrothed to the Dauphin of France. Elizabeth was taken to Hampton Court, and afterwards spent the remainder of Mary's reign at Hatfield, outwardly conforming to the Catholic religion, under the supervision of Sir Thomas Pope. Her safety, despite Mary's resentment and mistrust, was assured by Philip's desire to marry her to the Duke of Savoy, Emmanuel-Philibert. Savoy was a client state of the Habsburgs that had been occupied by France since 1536, and Philip’s intention to marry Elizabeth to the exiled Duke formed part of his wider plan to cement the Habsburg-Tudor alliance and draw England into war with France, despite marriage treaties between England and Spain ratified in 1554 that had stated that England was not to be drawn into European wars by the Habsburgs. As a result, Elizabeth regained her freedom, and Ascham was allowed to return as her tutor despite his known Protestant views. She refused to cooperate, however, with the plan of marriage.

Elizabeth recalled that her imprisonment in Mary's reign was the event that had most deeply affected her. As she told Parliament: 'I stood in danger of my life'. Her deliverance seemed to her to be a miracle, but her survival was also a matter of luck, in particular the fact that Philip visualized her marriage as the key to retaining England as part of the Habsburg Empire should his wife unexpectedly die. After Mary's death, Philip attempted to reconstruct the Habsburg-Tudor alliance by marrying Elizabeth himself. His rights in England had expired on his wife’s death by the terms of the earlier treaties, and his suit for Elizabeth’s hand explains why Spain attempted to avoid a confrontation with England for several years after 1558, a policy which also suited Elizabeth's diplomacy. Again, Elizabeth had gained advantage from Philip’s marriage plans, though she politely refused to cooperate.