Queen Elizabeth I

“ When she was weary of mystifying foreign statesmen she turned to find fresh sport in mystifying her own ministers. Had Elizabeth written the story of her reign she would have prided herself, not on the triumph of England or the ruin of Spain, but on the skill with which she had hoodwinked and outwitted every statesman in Europe during fifty years. Nothing is more revolting, but nothing is more characteristic of the Queen, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom. ”

“ Threatened on all sides, Queen Elizabeth bore herself with consummate skill and prudence, and even managed to make herself felt aggressively in continental affairs. The more striking events of her reign were the defeat of the great Spanish Armada, probably the most brilliant and complete sea-victory recorded in history, and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, her rival and captive. Queen Elizabeth’s reign shines as probably the most remarkable known for its intellectual flowering in every branch of human energy. ”

“ I do not present Queen Elizabeth either as a very interesting or as a faultless woman. As a woman she is not a popular favorite. But it is my object to present her as a queen; to show with what dignity and ability a woman may fill one of the most difficult and responsible stations of the world. It is certain that we associate with her a very prosperous and successful reign; and if she was lacking in those feminine qualities which make woman interesting to man, we are constrained to admire her for those talents and virtues which shed lustre around a throne. ”

“ By all these illustrious men Queen Elizabeth was honored and beloved. All received no small share of their renown from her glorious appreciation; all were proud to revolve around her as a central sun, giving life and growth to every great enterprise in her day, and shedding a light which shall gladden unborn generations.
It is something that a woman has earned such a fame, and in a sphere which has been supposed to belong to man alone. And if men shall here and there be found to decry her greatness, let no woman be found who shall seek to dethrone her from her lofty pedestal ”

“ It was the custom for the sovereigns to ride through the city of London in great state on their way to Westminster, where they were crowned, and Elizabeth’s ride was one of the most brilliant ever known. There were trumpeters and heralds in glittering armor; there were ladies on horseback in habits of crimson velvet; there were nobles in silks and satins and laces, gleaming with gold and sparkling with jewels; there were long lines of guards in the green and white of the Tudors; and in the midst of all the splendor was the queen in a gorgeous chariot lined with the richest crimson velvet. ”

“ But the greatness of the queen rests above all on her power over her people.
We have had grander and nobler rulers, but none so popular as Elizabeth. The passion of love, of loyalty, of admiration, which finds its most perfect expression in the “Faery Queen,” throbbed as intensely through the veins of her meanest subjects. To England, during her reign of half a century, she was a virgin and a Protestant queen; and her immorality, her absolute want of religious enthusiasm, failed utterly to blur the brightness of the national idea. Her worst acts broke fruitlessly against the general devotion. ”

“ Thus, Henry IV. of France, and William III. of England have been admired in spite of their defects.
Queen Elizabeth is the first among the great female sovereigns of the world with whose reign we associate a decided progress in national wealth, power, and prosperity; so that she ranks with the great men who have administered kingdoms. If I can prove this fact, the sex should be proud of so illustrious a woman, and should be charitable to those foibles which sullied the beauty of her character, since they were in part faults of the age, and developed by the circumstances which surrounded her. ”

“ The genius of Elizabeth created her age; surrounding herself by no puny favourites of an hour, in the circle of her royalty were seen the most laborious statesmen our annals record, and a generation of romantic commanders; the secretaries of state were eminently learned; and the queen was all these herself, in her tried prudence, her dauntless intrepidity, and her lettered accomplishments. The energies of the sovereign reached the people, and were responded to; the spirit-stirring events rose with the times: it was a reign of enterprise and emulation, a new era of adventure and glory. ”

“ Facing the stage, and beneath her canopy of state, sits Queen Elizabeth, in ruff and farthingale, her hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, while her sharp smile and keen glance take note of every incident. Nearest her person and evidently the chief favourite of the moment, is the man who has long been considered the Adonis of the Court. ”

“ There never was a sovereign who maintained a conflict of world-wide importance amidst greater dangers and with greater success than Queen Elizabeth. Her grandfather had begun a political emancipation from the ruling influences of the continent, her father an ecclesiastical one: Elizabeth took up their task and accomplished it victoriously against Rome and against Spain, while her people had an ever-increasing part in public affairs, and thus entered into a new stage of development. Her memory is inseparably connected with the independence and power of England. ”

“ When Elizabeth was Queen of England it was a time of great deeds and great men. The queen was brave and clever herself, so she liked to have brave and clever people around her. Great soldiers, and writers, and statesmen went to her court; and when brave seamen came back from their voyages to unknown lands far away, they were invited by the queen to visit her, and tell her of all the strange places and people they had seen. In this Elizabeth was wise, for men did their best to show themselves worthy of her favours. ”

“ The English longed to feel sure that the government would go on peacefully even if their queen should be taken from them. Before Henry’s father came to the throne, there had been in England a terrible time of civil war because there were different claimants to the crown who were supported by different parties, and most people in the land would rather have a form of worship with which they did not agree than feel that the death of their sovereign would be followed by a return of those bloody days. If Elizabeth married and had a child to inherit the crown, the land would settle down to quiet. ”

“ Amid so many dangers and difficulties, Queen Elizabeth, by wisdom and prudence, not only managed to defend herself, but became one of the greatest rulers of any age. She devoted her energies to the government of her people, and, though courted by many princes, would never marry, for fear such a relation would impair her usefulness as a queen. ”

“ Elizabeth's courage and the loyalty with which she had been served by her brave subjects had saved England, and never since that time, with the exception of a raid by the American sailor, Paul Jones, have British shores been reached by a foreign foeman. The English nation was changing in Elizabeth's reign more than in any former period, and many blessings were being given to the Queen's subjects that they had never hitherto known. Her reign saw the last vestige of bondage and servitude die out; and men were now allowed to practise the Protestant religion without the constant fear of death. ”

“ It is well deserving of remark, that the strongest and most extraordinary act of the whole administration of Elizabeth,—that which brought the blood of a sister-queen upon her head and indelible reproach upon her memory,—appears to have been productive of scarcely any assignable political effect. It changed her relations with no foreign power, it altered very little the state of parties at home, it recommended no new adviser to her favor, it occasioned the displacement of Davison alone. ”

“ Mankind have always been very much divided in opinion in respect to the personal character of Queen Elizabeth, but in one point all have agreed, and that is, that in the management of public affairs she was a woman of extraordinary talent and sagacity, combining, in a very remarkable degree, a certain cautious good sense and prudence with the most determined resolution and energy. ”

“ Elizabeth was about twenty-five years of age when she ascended the throne of England. It is odd that the date of her birth cannot be given with precision. The intrigues and disturbances of the English court, and the fact that she was a princess, made her birth a matter of less account than if there had been no male heir to the throne. At any rate, when she ascended it, after the deaths of her brother, King Edward VI., and her sister, Queen Mary, she was a woman well trained both in intellect and in physical development. ”

“ Elizabeth, daughter of Henry and a disgraced and decapitated Queen, wore the crown of England. If heredity had been as much talked of then as now, England might have feared the child of a faithless wife, and a remorseless, bloodthirsty King. But while Mary, daughter of Katharine, the most pious and best of mothers, had left only a great blood-spot upon the page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be the most wise, prosperous and great, the Kingdom had ever known. ”

“ As to Elizabeth, certain writers have ascribed Philip's protection of her at this juncture to the following deduction of consequences;—that if she were taken off, and if the queen should die childless, England would become the inheritance of the queen of Scots, now betrothed to the dauphin, and thus go to augment the power of France, already the most formidable rival of the Spanish monarchy. ”

“ THE AGE OF ELIZABETH, 1558-1603 The Reign of Elizabeth.—Queen Elizabeth, who ranks among the greatest of the world's rulers, was the daughter of Henry VIII. and his second wife Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth reigned as queen of England from 1558 until her death in 1603. The remarkable allowances which she made for difference of opinion showed that she felt the spirit of the Renaissance. She loved England, and her most important acts were guided, not by selfish personal motives, but by a strong desire to make England a great nation. ”

“ The road was lined with people who shouted, “Queen Elizabeth! Queen Elizabeth! Long may she reign! God save the queen!” Children gazed at her eagerly, while their mothers wept tears of joy, and young men knelt and cried out their vows of loyalty and devotion. Many of the bishops of the realm came in procession to greet her and begged to kiss her hand.
“Did you see that?” whispered a woman to her neighbor. “The queen wouldn’t give her hand to the cruel bishop of London. She knows well it’s because of him that more than one good man’s been burned at the stake. ”

“ The literary propensities of Elizabeth have already come under our notice: they had frequently served to divert her mind from the cares of government; but in the state of unremitted anxiety occasioned by her dread of the machinations relative to the queen of Scots, in which she had found the first peer of her realm a principal actor, her thoughts, even in the few leisure hours which she found means to bestow on these soothing recreations, still hovered about the objects from which she most sought to withdraw them. ”

“ They were even loyal to her. They were content to wait till she should disappear in the course of nature and make room for the Queen of Scots. Mendoza writes to Philip that “they place themselves in the hands of God, and are willing to sacrifice life and all in the service, but scarcely with that burning zeal which they ought to show.”
By the bull of Pius V., Englishmen were forbidden to acknowledge Elizabeth as their Queen; in other words, they were ordered to expose themselves to the penalties of treason. ”

“ There was much in the proposal to flatter the pride and tempt the ambition of a prince; much also to gratify that desire of retaliation which the encouragement given by Philip to the Northern rebellion and to certain movements in Ireland, as well as to all the machinations of the queen of Scots, may reasonably be supposed to have excited in the bosom of Elizabeth. ”

“ It was really a pity that the queen lost all this display.
The chief reason for Elizabeth’s pleasure in these progresses was probably her delight in all pageants and thorough enjoyment of her popularity among the people. At such times she was nearer to them than at any others. The humblest servant in the castle where she was182 making her stay, the simplest peasant of the countryside, had as free access to her Majesty as the greatest of her nobles. Anyone might bring her a petition, anyone might offer her a gift ”

“ But the number of the ungodly is so great in power, that there is not a corner left upon the whole earth now untainted with their wicked doctrines. Amongst which Elizabeth, pretended Queen of England, is above all the shelter and refuge of error and most noisome enemies. It is she, who, after she had possessed the Kingdom, usurping (monster-like) the place of the chief Sovereign of the Church in England and the principal jurisdiction and authority thereof, hath thrown into miserable ruin the whole kingdom, when it was even brought to the Catholic Faith, and began to bring forth good fruits. ”

“ Elizabeth, a Queen in title and in dignity, inferior to no King in all the world. For her judgment, counsel, and government, not easily second to any other that bears a sceptre in the earth. In her familiarity with the arts, knowledge of the sciences, understanding and practice of all languages spoken in Europe by the people or by the learned, I leave the whole world to judge what rank she should hold among princes. ”