Queen Elizabeth

“ 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. ”

“ Elizabeth, casting aside all her weaknesses, showed herself worthy to be the queen and heroine of such a people. Her prudence, her vigilance, her presence of mind, which failed not for a moment, inspired unbounded confidence, while her cheerful countenance and spirited demeanour breathed hope and courage and alacrity into the coldest bosoms. Never did a sovereign enter upon a great and awful contest with a more strenuous resolution to fulfil all duties, to confront all perils; never did a people repay with such ardor of gratitude, such enthusiasm of attachment, the noblest virtues of a prince. ”

“ 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. ”

“ QUEEN ELIZABETH
Ah, he is young; and his minority
Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloster,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
RIVERS
Is it concluded he shall be protector?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
It is determin'd, not concluded yet:
But so it must be, if the king miscarry.
[Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY.] GREY
Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Stanley.
BUCKINGHAM
Good time of day unto your royal grace!
STANLEY
God make your majesty joyful as you have been!
QUEEN ELIZABETH
The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Stanley,
To your good prayer will scarcely say amen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Queen Elizabeth used to behave to her brave admirals and generals, and her wise counsellors, and even to her great merchants, like a friend. She visited them in their houses, and talked to them cheerfully of her affairs. She took notice of even the poorest people, and she used to walk and ride about, so that all her subjects knew her and loved her. And now I am going to tell you a part of her history, which will show you how happy it was for her and for England that the people did love their good queen.
The King of Spain had never loved Elizabeth ”

“ In our tracing of these events we have taken an impartial view of the character and conduct of Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps with no other monarch is it so necessary to discriminate between fond traditions and the cold facts of history. Elizabeth was a woman of a masculine and penetrating mind; no ruler ever knew more ably how to select capable ministers, and surround herself with the splendour of statesmanlike talent, bravery, and genius. ”

“ And Queen Elizabeth, old in years, but ever young in her love of fun and frolic and flattery, must be made to forget the heaviness of time and the infirmities of age. If she may no longer take part in out-door sports--the hunting, the hawking, the bear-baiting,--she still may command processions, fêtes, masques, and stage-plays. It pleases her now to see this wonderful fairy piece, of which she has heard so much since, two years ago, it graced the nuptials of the Earl of Derby. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Enter Queen Elizabeth with her hair about her ears, Rivers and Dorset after her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I’ll join with black despair against my soul
And to myself become an enemy.
DUCHESS.
What means this scene of rude impatience?
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
To make an act of tragic violence.
Edward, my lord, thy son, our King, is dead.
Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
If you will live, lament ”

“ Let all who wore within a manly heart, without a manly sword, look on the woes of 'Mary,'—her shame, her tears, her blushes, her heart pierced through with daily wounds, from heretic tongues, and choose between her and Elizabeth! ”

“ Queen Elizabeth very evidently possessed that peculiar combination of quickness of intellect and readiness of tongue which enables those who possess it to say very sharp and biting things, when vexed or out of humor. It is a brilliant talent, though it always makes those who possess it hated and feared. Elizabeth was often wantonly cruel in the exercise of this satirical power, considering very little—as is usually the case with such persons—the justice of her invectives, but obeying blindly the impulses of the ill nature which prompted her to utter them. ”

“ Once more Queen Elizabeth figures in our pageant. She is passing to her barge amidst a crowd of courtiers, who buzz round her like bees seeking the honey of her smile. Amongst the spectators of her progress you observe a young man, comely of person, handsome of face, and gallant of bearing. Suddenly her Majesty pauses; the ground is miry, and she hesitates to soil her dainty shoes. In a moment the young man has pulled off his rich plush cloak and has thrown it upon the ground for the queen to walk upon. She is flattered by the attention ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theater, where Troo to the Core is bein acted, and in which a full bally core is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he conkers that town. ”

“ We will now tell the story of a young girl who became the most famous Queen that the world has ever known and laid the real foundations for the modern greatness of the English nation. The name of this girl was Elizabeth, and the time in which she lived has since been called the Elizabethan Era. For England at that time was rich in the bravest soldiers, the most daring sailors and the greatest men of genius, and Elizabeth knew well how to surround herself with these men and use their great talents to benefit her country. ”

“ We are come now to the end of Queen Elizabeth’s long and famous reign. She died when she had been queen forty-five years, and was very unhappy at her death. Her favourite Lord Essex behaved so ill after he came from Ireland, that the queen’s counsellors ordered him to be put to death. Now, the queen had once given him a ring, when he was her greatest favourite, and told him, that if he would send it to her whenever he was in danger, she would save his life and forgive any of his faults. ”

“ Queen Elizabeth soon gained unbounded influence over the mind of her husband, which she too frequently exerted for the advancement of her own relatives. She had a soft, caressing voice, and always assumed an air of humility, when desirous of gaining a point, that had its weight with Edward. The acknowledgment of the king's marriage was followed by a series of the most brilliant feasts and tournaments ever witnessed in England.
The coronation of the new queen took place at Westminster Abbey, May 26th. ”

“ Thus escorted, Elizabeth passed into the walk, and thence, at a leisurely pace, into the walk adjoining. There she was joined by the lords and ladies in waiting, and, after a brief promenade, the whole party, following in the wake of the Queen, proceeded thence to the palace.
It was a part of the household policy of Elizabeth, at this period of her life, to extend her favour to several persons at once, so that only herself should be supreme. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”