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Elizabeth I of England

Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeth's birth. Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her half-brother, Edward VI, ruled until his death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to Lady Jane Grey and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary, in spite of statute law to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day.

Quotes

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1540s

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  • Master Tyrwhit and others have told me that there goeth rumors abroad which be greatly both against mine honor and honesty, which above all other things I esteem, which be these: that I am in the Tower and with child by my lord admiral. My lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which, besides the great desire I have to see the king’s majesty, I shall most heartily desire your lordship that I may come to the court after your first determination, that I may show myself there as I am. Written in haste from Hatfield this 28 of January. Your assured friend to my little power, Elizabeth.
    • Letter to Edward Seymour, Lord Protector (28 January 1549), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 24

1550s

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  • 'Twas God the Word that spake it,
    He took the Bread and brake it:
    And what that Word did make it,
    That I believe and take it.
    • Verses on the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist whilst prisoner in Woodstock Palace (c. 1554), quoted in Queen Elizabeth's Opinion concerning Transubstantiation, Or the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; with some Prayers and Thanksgiving composed by Her in Imminent Dangers (1688)
 
I am already bound unto an husband, which is the kingdom of England... for every one of you, and as many as are English, are my children and kinsfolks.
  • Much suspected by me,
    Nothing proved can be,
    Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.
    • Written with a diamond on her window at Woodstock (1555), published in Acts and Monuments (1563) by John Foxe
  • This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.
    • Her reaction when she was told she was Queen (17 November 1558)
  • I am already bound unto an husband, which is the kingdom of England... for every one of you, and as many as are English, are my children and kinsfolks.
    • Speech to Parliament (10 February 1559), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 59
  • Our realm and subjects have been long wanderers, walking astray, whilst they were under the tuition of Romish pastors, who advised them to own a wolf for their head, (in lieu of a careful shepherd,) whose inventions, heresies, and schisms be so numerous, that the flock of Christ have fed on poisonous shrubs for want of wholesome pastures... and your own Romish idolatry maketh you liars.
    • Letter to the Catholic bishops (6 December 1559), quoted in John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and Other Various Occurrences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth's Happy Reign: Together With an Appendix of Original Papers of State, Records, and Letters. Vol. I. Part I (1824), p. 218
  • And whereas you would frighten us, by telling how emperors, kings, and princes have owned the bishop of Rome's authority; it was contrary in the beginning. For our Saviour Christ paid his tribute unto Caesar, as the chief superior; which shews your Romish supremacy is usurped.
    • Letter to the Catholic bishops (6 December 1559), quoted in John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and Other Various Occurrences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth's Happy Reign: Together With an Appendix of Original Papers of State, Records, and Letters. Vol. I. Part I (1824), p. 219
  • But to grant them churches, wherein they might celebrate mass, and have congregations and public assemblies, she could not with the safety of her realm, and without wrong to her own honour and conscience: neither did she see cause, why she should grant it, seeing England embraced not new or strange doctrine, but the same which Christ commanded, and what the primitive and catholic church had received, and was approved by the ancient fathers, as might be testified by their writings. Therefore for her to allow churches which contradicted the truth and the gospel, were not only to repeal the laws established by act of parliament, but to sow religion out of religion, to distract good people's minds, to cherish factions, to disturb religion and the commonwealth, and to mingle divine and human things.
    • Letter to the Catholic bishops (1559), quoted in John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, and Other Various Occurrences in the Church of England, during Queen Elizabeth's Happy Reign: Together With an Appendix of Original Papers of State, Records, and Letters. Vol. I. Part I (1824), p. 221

1560s

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[I] would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.
  • Like as no one thing, in the government and charge committed unto us by the favourable goodness of Almighty God, doth more profit and beautify the same to his pleasure and acceptation, to our comfort and ease of our government, and, finally, to the universal weal and repose of our people and countries, than unity, quietness, and concord, as well amongst the public ministers having charge under us, as in the multitude of the people by us and them ruled; so, contrariwise, diversity, variety, contention, and vain love of singularity, either in our ministers or in the people, must needs provoke the displeasure of Almighty God.
    • Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker (25 January 1564), quoted in Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury. Comprising Letters Written By and To Him, From A.D. 1535, To His Death, A.D. 1575, eds. John Bruce and Rev. Thomas Thomason Perowne (1853), pp. 223-224
  • Wherefore, although our earnest care and inward desire hath always been, from the beginning of our reign, to provide that by laws and ordinances agreeable to truth and justice, and consonant to good order, this our realm should be directed and governed, both in the ecclesiastical and civil policy, by public officers and ministers following, as near as possibly might be, one rule, form, and manner of order in all their actions, and directing our people to obey humbly and live godly, according to their several callings, in unity and concord, without diversities of opinions or novelties of rites and manners, or without maintenance or breeding of any contentions about the same.
    • Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker (25 January 1564), quoted in Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury. Comprising Letters Written By and To Him, From A.D. 1535, To His Death, A.D. 1575, eds. John Bruce and Rev. Thomas Thomason Perowne (1853), p. 224
  • [I]n sundry places of our realm of late...there is crept and brought into the church by some few persons, abounding more in their own senses than wisdom would, and delighting with singularities and changes, an open and manifest disorder and offence to the godly wise and obedient persons, by diversity of opinions and specially in the external, decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to be used in the churches...the inconvenience thereof were like to grow from place to place, as it were by an infection, to a great annoyance, trouble, and deformity to the rest of the whole body of the realm, and thereby impair, deface, and disturb Christian charity, unity, and concord, being the very bands of our religion.
    • Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker (25 January 1564), quoted in Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury. Comprising Letters Written By and To Him, From A.D. 1535, To His Death, A.D. 1575, eds. John Bruce and Rev. Thomas Thomason Perowne (1853), pp. 224-225
  • Kings were wont to honour philosophers, but if I had such I would honour them as angels that should have such piety in them that they would not seek where they are the second to be the first, and where the third to be the second and so forth.
    • Response to Parliament (October 1566)
  • Though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.
    • Response to Parliament (October 1566)
  • I will make you shorter by the head.
    • Response to Parliament (October 1566)
  • Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is there any cause I should alienate myself from being careful over this country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to others' harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth, that I should be suspected to have no regard to the same? How have I governed since my reign? I will be tried by envy itself. I need not to use many words, for my deeds do try me.
    • Speech to a joint delegation of the House of Lords and the House of Commons (5 November 1566), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 95
  • The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
    And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
    For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects’ faith doth ebb,
    Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
    But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,
    Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.
    The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,
    And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.
    The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
    Shall be unsealed by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.
    The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow
    Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
    No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
    Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.
    My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ
    To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.

1570s

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  • The queen's majesty being right sorry to understand that the order of common prayer, set forth by the common consent of the realm and by authority of parliament in the first year of her reign, wherein is nothing contained but the scripture of God, and that which is consonant unto it, is now of late of some men despised, and spoken against, both by open preachings, and writings, and of some bold and vain curious men, new and other rites found out and frequented; whereupon contentions, sects, and disquietness doth arise among her people, and for one godly and uniform order, diversity of rites and ceremonies, disputations and contentions, schisms and divisions already risen, and more like to ensue: the cause of which disorders, her majesty doth plainly understand to be the negligence of the bishops and other magistrates, who should cause the good laws and acts of parliament made in this behalf to be better executed, and not so dissembled and winked at, as hitherto (it may appear) that they have been.
    • A proclamation against the despisers or breakers of the orders prescribed in the book of common prayer (October 1573), quoted in Edward Cardwell, Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England; Being a Collection of Injunctions, Declarations, Orders, Articles of Inquiry, &c. from the Year 1546 to the Year 1716; With Notes Historical and Explanatory, Vol. I (1839), pp. 349-350
  • [O]f late years there hath been used in divers dioceses of this realm a certain public exercise, or, as they call it, prophesying, by certain persons pretending a more purity, by the manner of the doing thereof evil effect hath ensued in some places, to our grief, among the unlearned sort, easy to be carried with novelties.
    Therefore, for certain good causes moving us, we do will and command you, forthwith upon the receipt hereof, to make express order throughout all your diocese, that all such prophecies be forborne; and none other exercise be suffered to be publicly used than preaching by persons learned, discreet, conformable and sound in religion, heard and allowed by you without partiality, and reading homilies in such sort as is set forth by public authority, by the injunction and order of the Book of Common Prayer.
    • Letter to the Bishop of Worcester, John Whitgift (April 1577), quoted in John Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, D.D. The Third and Last Lord Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Vol. I (1822), p. 164

1580s

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Amyas, my most careful and faithful servant, God reward thee treblefold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged.
  • The use of the sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession thereof.
    • To the Spanish Ambassador (1580)
  • For rather will I never meddle with marriage than have such a bad covenant added to my part. Shall it be ever found true that Queen Elizabeth hath solemnized the perpetual harm of England under the glorious title of marriage with Francis, heir of France? No, no, it shall never be.
    • Letter to Sir Edward Stafford, ambassador to France (c. August 1580), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 248
  • Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.
    • Letter (1581)
  • I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
    I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
    I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
    I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
    • "On Monsieur's Departure" (February 1582)
  • My care is like my shadow in the sun,
    Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
    Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
    His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
    No means I find to rid him from my breast,
    Till by the end of things it be supprest.
    Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
    For I am soft and made of melting snow;
    Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
    Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
    Or let me live with some more sweet content,
    Or die and so forget what love ere meant.
    • "On Monsieur's Departure" (February 1582)
  • [Y]ou suffer many ministers to preach what they list, and to minister the sacraments according to their own fancies—some one way, some another—to the breach of unity; yea, and some of them so curious in searching matters above their capacity as they preach they wot not what: that there is no hell, but a torment of conscience; nay, I have heard of there be six preachers in one diocese the which do preach six sundry ways. I wish such men to be brought to conformity and unity, that they minister the sacraments according to the order of this realm and preach all one truth; and that such as be found not worthy to preach, to be compelled to read homilies such as were set forth in our brother King Edward his time and since. For there is more of learning in one of those than in twenty of some of their sermons.
    • Speech to bishops and other clergy at Somerset Place (27 February 1585), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 178
  • Amyas, my most careful and faithful servant, God reward thee treblefold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged.
  • I...do render you many loving thanks for the joy you took of my narrow escape from the chaws [jaws] of death, to which I might easily have fallen but that the hand of the Highest saved me from that snare. And for that the curse of that design rose up from the wicked suggestion of the Jesuits, which make it an acceptable sacrifice to God and meritorious to themself that a king not of their profession should be murdered, therefore I could keep my pen no longer from discharging my care of your person, that you suffer not such vipers to inhabit your land.
    • Letter to King James VI of Scotland (4 October 1586), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), pp. 286-287
  • I thank God that you beware so soon of Jesuits that have been the source of all these treacheries in this realm and will spread like an evil weed if at the first they be not weeded out... What religion is this that they pay—the way to salvation is to kill the prince for a merit meritorious?
    • Letter to King James VI of Scotland (15 October 1586), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 290

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)

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I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
Delivered at Tilbury, Essex on August 19, 1588. Full text at Wikisource.
  • Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects.
  • Rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns.
  • By your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

1590s

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  • [L]et me warn you that there is risen both in your realm and mine a sect of perilous consequence—such as would have no kings but a presbytery, and take our place while they enjoy our privilege with a shade of God's Word, which none is judged to follow right without by their censure they be so deemed. Yea, look we well unto them. When they have made in our people's hearts a doubt of our religion and that we err if they say so, what perilous issue this may make I rather think than mind to write. Sapienti pauca. I pray you stop the mouths or make shorter the tongues of such ministers as dare presume to make orison in their pulpits for the persecuted in England for the Gospel. Suppose you, my dear brother, that I can tolerate such scandals of my sincere government? No.
    • Letter to King James VI of Scotland (6 July 1590), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), pp. 364-365
  • For even our enemies hold our nation resolute and valiant, which though they will not outwardly show, they invariably know. And whensoever the malice of our enemies should cause them to make any attempt against us, I doubt not but we shall have the greatest glory, God fighting for those that truly serve Him with the justness of their quarrel.
    • Speech to Parliament (10 April 1593), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 332

1600s

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Those who touch the sceptres of princes deserve no pity.
  • I am Richard II know ye not that? ... He that will forget God, will also forget his benefactors; this tragedy was played 40 times in open streets and houses.
    • Remarks to William Lambarde (4 August 1601), quoted in "That which passed from the Excellent Majestie of Queen Elizabeth, in her Privie Chamber at East Greenwich, 4 August 1601, 43° reg. sui, towards William Lambarde.", quoted in John Nichols, Antiquities in Kent and Sussex; Being the First Volume of the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica (1790), p. 525
    • Elizabeth's words are often read as a reference to Shakespeare's Richard II, a performance of which was commissioned by Essex's followers shortly before the rebellion
  • Must is not a word to be used to princes! Little man, little man, if your father had lived, ye durst not have said so much: but thou knowest I must die, and that maketh thee so presumptuous.
    • To Robert Cecil when he said, in her final illness (March 1603), that she must go to bed.

The Golden Speech (1601)

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Delivered to the House of Commons on November 30, 1601. Full text at Wikisource.
  • Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my Crown, that I have reigned with your loves.
  • I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen, as to be a Queen over so thankful a people. Therefore I have cause to wish nothing more than to content the subject and that is a duty which I owe. Neither do I desire to live longer days than I may see your prosperity and that is my only desire.
  • I know the title of a King is a glorious title, but assure yourself that the shining glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled the eyes of our understanding, but that we well know and remember that we also are to yield an account of our actions before the great judge. To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.
  • There will never Queen sit in my seat with more zeal to my country, care to my subjects and that will sooner with willingness venture her life for your good and safety than myself. For it is my desire to live nor reign no longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.
  • "I shall be thy name in Christ as I emerge through these walls in vain."

Undated

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  • Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
  • If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.
    • Rhyming response written on a windowpane beneath Sir Walter Raleigh's writing: "Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall." As quoted in The History of the Worthies of England (1662) by Thomas Fuller


Disputed

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  • I would not open windows into men's souls.
  • God may forgive you, but I never can.
    • To the Countess of Nottingham, as quoted in The History of England Under the House of Tudor (1759) by David Hume, Vol. II, Ch. 7. Hume says that Elizabeth had given Essex a ring after his expedition to Cádiz that he should send to her if he was in trouble. After his trial for his rebellion against the queen, he tried to send the ring to Elizabeth via Catherine, but the Countess kept the ring because her husband was an enemy of Essex, who, as a result, was executed. On her deathbed in 1603, Catherine is said to have confessed this to Elizabeth, who angrily replied as cited. There is a possible earlier reference to the legend by John Webster in his 1623 play The Devil's Law Case, but the first printed version of it is in the 1695 romantic novel The Secret History of the most renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex, by a Person of Quality.

Quotes about Elizabeth I

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It is difficult to say whether the gifts of nature or of fortune are most to be admired in that illustrious lady. The praise which Aristotle gives wholly centres in her—beauty, stature, prudence, and industry. ~ Roger Ascham
 
As for her government, I assure myself I shall not exceed, if I do affirm that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better times; and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of her regiment. ~ Francis Bacon
 
She disappointed, divided, and weakened her enemies. She prepared the opportunities, which she afterward improved. She united, animated, and enriched her people; and, as difficult as that may seem to be for a prince in such a situation, she maintained her own dignity, and supported the honour of the nation. ~ Lord Bolingbroke
 
She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs; she is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all. ~ Pope Sixtus V
  • It is difficult to say whether the gifts of nature or of fortune are most to be admired in that illustrious lady. The praise which Aristotle gives wholly centres in her—beauty, stature, prudence, and industry. She has just passed her sixteenth birthday, and shows such dignity and gentleness as are wonderful at her age and in her rank. Her study of true religion and learning is most energetic. Her mind has no womanly weakness, her perseverance is equal to that of a man, and her memory long keeps what it quickly picks up. She talks French and Italian as well as English: she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin, and moderately so in Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin, nothing is more beautiful than her hand-writing. She is as much delighted with music as she is skilful in the art. In adornment she is elegant rather than showy, and by her contempt of gold and head-dresses, she reminds one of Hippolyte rather than of Phsedra.
    • Roger Ascham to Sturm (4 April 1550), quoted in The Whole Works of Roger Ascham, now first Collected and Revised, with a Life of the Author, Vol. I. Part I (1765), p. lxiii
  • She is your true and natural Queen, bred, born, and brought up amongst you, and as she has naturally loved you even from the beginning of her reign, so do you most naturally, like English men, defend her, fight for her, and not only guard her with danger of your lives, but also aid her with your lands and livings, and as God has blessed you by her means with gold and silver... open your purses and bestow largely upon her now in time of war, by whom you have filled your coffers richly in time of peace... Pugnate pro patria, fight for you country, your dearest country, wherein you have been bred, born, nourished and brought up, toward which you ought to be as inwardly affected, as you are naturally moved to your mothers. It is your native soil, and therefore most sweet; for what may be dearer or sweeter than your Country?
    • William Averell, A Mervalious Combat of Contrarieties (1588), quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), pp. 83-84
  • This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and great even amongst masculine princes; whether we speak of learning, of language, or of science, modern or ancient, Divinity or Humanity: and unto the very last year of her life she was accustomed to appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young student in a university more daily, or more duly. As for her government, I assure myself I shall not exceed, if I do affirm that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better times; and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of her regiment.
    • Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605), quoted in The Works of Francis Bacon, Volume I (1884), p. 179
  • Now you, the whole world's ornament, the Queen
    On whose behalf both winds and oceans fight,
    Rule on with God, far from ambition seen,
    And succour still the pious with your might,
    That England you, you England long hold dear,
    Whom good men love as much as wicked fear.
    • Theodore Beza, 'To the Most Serene Elizabeth, Queen of England' (1588), quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), p. 194
  • Unallied and alone, queen Elizabeth maintained a glorious and successful war against the greatest power and the richest potentate in Europe. She distressed him in the West Indies. She insulted him in Spain. She took from him the empire of the sea. She fixed it in herself. She rendered all the projects of universal monarchy vain; and shook to the foundations the most exorbitant power, which ever disturbed the peace, or threatened the liberties of Europe... She, who seemed to have every thing to fear in the beginning of her reign, became in the progress of it terrible to her enemies... [S]he preserved her subjects in peace and plenty. While the glory of the nation was carried high by achievements in war: the riches and the strength of it were raised by the arts of peace to such a degree, as former ages had never seen, and as we of this age feel in the consequences.
    • Lord Bolingbroke, Remarks on the History of England (1730–1731), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Historical Writings, ed. Isaac Kramnick (1972), pp. 242–243
  • She considered the interest of no kingdom, no state, nor people, no not even the general interest of the reformation, as zealous a protestant as she was, nor the preservation of a balance of power in Europe, as great a heroine as she was, in any other light than relatively to the interest of England. She assisted, or opposed, she defended or attacked, just as this interest directed.
    • Lord Bolingbroke, Remarks on the History of England (1730–1731), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Historical Writings, ed. Isaac Kramnick (1972), p 257
  • She disappointed, divided, and weakened her enemies. She prepared the opportunities, which she afterward improved. She united, animated, and enriched her people; and, as difficult as that may seem to be for a prince in such a situation, she maintained her own dignity, and supported the honour of the nation.
    • Lord Bolingbroke, Remarks on the History of England (1730–1731), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Historical Writings, ed. Isaac Kramnick (1972), p. 261
  • She considered herself as queen of a country cut off from the Continent, and separated by the sea from all other countries, except Scotland... The situation of an island affords great advantages, when they are wisely improved; and when they are neglected, as great disadvantages may result from this very situation. The reign, now before us, is a glorious and unanswerable proof, that the halcyon days, so much boasted of, and so seldom found, days of prosperity, as well as peace, may be enjoyed in an island, while all the neighbouring continent is filled with alarms, and even laid waste by war.
    • Lord Bolingbroke, Remarks on the History of England (1730–1731), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Historical Writings, ed. Isaac Kramnick (1972), p. 264
  • [S]he united the great body of the people in her and their common interest, she inflamed them with one national spirit, and, thus armed, she maintained tranquillity at home, and carried succour to her friends and terror to her enemies abroad.
    • Lord Bolingbroke, The Idea of a Patriot King (1738), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Political Writings, ed. David Armitage (1997), p. 272
  • A warm concern for the interest and honour of the nation, a tenderness for her people, and a confidence in their affections, were appearances that ran through her whole public conduct, and gave life and colour to it. She did great things, and she knew how to set them off according to their full value, by her manner of doing them.
    • Lord Bolingbroke, The Idea of a Patriot King (1738), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Political Writings, ed. David Armitage (1997), p. 288
  • Greatest of all the Queen's services to England was the peace she gave her. When a divided Christendom was wracked by cruel ideological passions, within their watery bounds the English were at peace and unity. It was of this Elizabeth was most proud, and deservedly, for it was she who had saved them from the maelstrom by her diplomacy, her womanly dissimulation and cunning and, after her brief initial intervention in the religious wars of Scotland and France, her determination to spare both her people and purse from the waste, folly and destruction of war.
  • Perhaps no figure in English history has inspired more myth than Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603). She had many personas: the Virgin Queen, Gloriana, Good Queen Bess to her supporters; the bastard and heretic daughter of the whore, Anne Boleyn, to her detractors. In her day, scores of poets and artists promoted these various images. Since then, legions of writers, some scholarly, some popular, as well as playwrights and film-makers, have sought to relate the achievements of her reign and explain the mystique she exercised over her people. She herself was well aware of that mystique, cultivating it so effectively that it is almost impossible to pin down the "real" Elizabeth. Still, it is necessary to try, if only because so many of the age's triumphs and failures were intimately bound up with her words and actions.
    • Richard Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714: A Narrative History (2009), p. 116
  • Like her father, Henry VIII, with whom she identified publicly, she was a larger-than-life personality. As with King Hal, this makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction. This much is inarguable. Elizabeth was young when she took the throne: 25 years old. She was also good-looking- an advantage that she was not reluctant to exploit. In addition, the new queen was highly intelligent, witty, hardworking, and well educated. She was fluent in Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and, of course, English. She wrote poetry and could speak effectively when she chose to do so. Elizabeth was also, like her father, something of a scholar: she once translated Boethius' On the Consolations of Philosophy into English for her own amusement. She also took after her father in being both musical and athletic. She played the virginals (a primitive keyboard instrument), danced, and hunted with enthusiasm. A final, crucial similarity to Henry VIII was that Elizabeth I was vain and imperious. Men could flirt with her- indeed, she encouraged them- but they had to be careful not to go too far, for she never forgot that she was queen.
    • Richard Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714: A Narrative History (2009), p. 118
  • If even Mary's good qualities proved to be counter-productive, Elizabeth's bad ones sometimes worked in her favor. For example, her imperious nature, quick temper, and sharp tongue did much to counter any assumptions that she was weak because she was a woman. The most common charge leveled against her, also linked to contemporary assumptions about her gender, is that she was indecisive. Thus, Robert Devereaux, earl of Essex (1565-1601), complained to the French ambassador in 1597 that "they labored under two things at this Court, delay and inconsistency, which proceeded from the sex of the queen."
    • Richard Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714: A Narrative History (2009), p. 118
  • Indeed, Queen Elizabeth was capable of making her Privy Council and parliaments wait an agonizingly long time while she made up her mind. In some crucial cases (marriage, what to do about Mary Queen of Scots), it could be argued that she never did so. But it could also be argued that she had been taught by hard experience the dangers of committing herself too early or too definitely. After all, Elizabeth had grown up in a perilous environment in which overt commitment to one side or the other- in politics or religion- could lead to disgrace, even death. As queen, she ruled a country which was seemingly at the mercy of bigger, more powerful neighbors. What often struck her subjects (and later male historians) as indecisiveness now looks like prudence, even a mastery of herself and of the situation at hand. In particular she was a virtuoso at playing two sides off each other, so that they would not turn against her- or England.
    • Richard Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714: A Narrative History (2009), p. 118
  • Elizabeth, again like her father, learned to use the possibility of matrimony as a diplomatic trump card or, more crudely, as bait: after all, marriage to the queen of England would be a peaceful and inexpensive way for Spain or France to win that country into an alliance and, perhaps, even back to Catholicism. Throughout the first half of the reign, especially during foreign policy crisis, she entertained a steady stream of French princes and German dukes, all of whom offered undying love- and diplomatic alliance. Unlike her father, however, she knew that marriage was a card that she could only play once. Once played, her freedom of maneuver and, with it, that of her country, would be virtually eliminated. Instead, she preferred to play potential suitors against each other in a brilliant game of amorous, albeit duplicitous, diplomacy.
    • Richard Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714: A Narrative History (2009), p. 120-121
  • Elizabeth, unlike Mary, born of both an English mother and an English father, seems to have felt real affection for her people. Certainly, she had the common touch, frequently going out amongst them on summer-long cross-country progresses, or being carried in an open chair through the streets of London. At such moments Elizabeth played to the crowd, ordered "her carriage... to be taken where the crowd seemed thickest, and stood up and thanked the people."
    • Richard Bucholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England, 1485-1714: A Narrative History (2009), p. 121
  • Remember and consider that this very day...eighty-two years sithence began a new resurrection of this kingdom from the dead, our second happy reformation of religion by the auspicious entrance of our late royal Deborah (worthy of eternal remembrance and honour) into her blessed and glorious reign.
    • Cornelius Burges, Sermon Preached to the Honourable House of Commons...November 17, 1640 (1641), quoted in William Haller, Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation (1963), p. 237 and Hugh Trevor-Roper, Religion, the Reformation and Social Change, and Other Essays (1967), p. 299
  • [Elizabeth is] descended by father and mother of mere English blood, and not of Spain, as her sister was.
    • Lord Burghley, memorandum (29 January 1559), quoted in Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1558–1559, preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, ed. Joseph Stevenson (1863), p. 107
  • The wisest woman that ever was; for she understood the interests and dispositions of all the princes in her time, and was so perfect in the knowledge of her own realm, that no counsellor could tell her anything she did not know before.
    • Lord Burghley, quoted in Frederick Chamberlain, The Private Character of Queen Elizabeth (1922), p. 156
  • [T]he Memory of that Princess (which amongst English-men ought ever to be gratefull and sacred).
    • William Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late Queen of England: Selected Chapters [1625] (1970), p. 8
  • [In 1588] the Queen with a masculine Spirit came and took a View of her Army and Camp at Tilbury, and riding about through the Ranks of Armed men drawn up on both sides her, with a Leader's Truncheon in her Hand, sometimes with a martial Pace, another while gently like a Woman, incredible it is how much she encouraged the Hearts of her Captains and Soldiers by her Presence and Speech to them.
    • William Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late Queen of England: Selected Chapters [1625] (1970), p. 326
  • On Wednesday the twenty-third of March [1603] she grew speechless. That afternoone, by signes, she called for her Councill, and by putting her hand to her head, when the King of Scottes was named to succeed her, they all knew hee was the man she desired should reign after her.
    • Robert Carey, Narrative of the Queen's last Sickness and Death, quoted in John Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. III (1823), p. 604
  • The greatest prince that perhaps this country ever saw.
    • Earl of Chatham, speech in the House of Lords (20 November 1777), quoted in W. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle (eds.), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: Vol. IV (1840), p. 452
  • With 1588 the crisis of the reign was past. England had emerged from the Armada year as a first-class Power. She had resisted the weight of the mightiest empire that had been seen since Roman times. Her people awoke to a consciousness of their greatness, and the last years of Elizabeth's reign saw a welling up of national energy and enthusiasm focused upon the person of the Queen. In the year following the Armada, the first three books were published of Spenser's Faerie Queene, in which Elizabeth is hymned as Gloriana. Poets and courtiers alike paid their homage to the sovereign who symbolized the great achievement. Elizabeth had schooled a generation of Englishmen.
    • Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume Two: The New World (1956), p. 133
  • Victory over Spain was the most shining achievement of Elizabeth's reign, but by no means the only one. The repulse of the Armada had subdued religious dissension at home. Events which had swung England toward Puritanism while the Catholic danger was impending swung her back to the Anglican settlement when the peril vanished in the smoke of the burning Armada at Gravelines.
    • Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume Two: The New World (1956), p. 137
  • Lest I offend, I hasten to explain that I have no motive to reduce Elizabeth in stature, or to diminish her vitality, if such a thing were possible. I know that her power to overawe, having first won the devotion of those personally and politically closest to her, has rarely been equalled.
    • Patrick Collinson, ‘The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, the J. E. Neale Memorial Lecture for 1987, delivered in University College London (8 May 1986), quoted in Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan Essays (1994), p. 35
  • Queen Elizabeth of famous memory,—we need not be ashamed to call her so! ...that Lady, that great Queen.
    • Oliver Cromwell's speech to Parliament (17 September 1656), quoted in Thomas Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches with Elucidations. Volume III (n.d.), p. 101
  • To report her death, like a thunder-clap, was able to kill thousands. It took away hearts from millions. For having brought up even under her wing a nation that was almost begotten and born under her, that never shouted any other ave than for her name, never saw the face of any prince but herself, never understood what that strange outlandish word 'change' signified—how was it possible but that her sickness should throw abroad universal fear, and her death an astonishment?
    • Thomas Dekker, The Wonderful Year (1603), quoted in Thomas Dekker, The Wonderful Year; The Gull's Horn-book; Penny-wise, Pound-foolish, English Villanies Descovered by Lantern and Candlelight; and Selected Writings, ed. E. D. Pendry (1968), p. 33
  • Queen Elizabeth, of Blessed Memory, ruled over her people for forty-five years, about half as long as most of them had any cause to expect to live. When she herself died, nearly seventy years old, there were very few alive who could even recall that another sovereign had ever sat on the throne of England. And though towards the end she had been not only old but also somewhat out of touch with the attitudes and ambitions of a new generation, she retained to the last the love and worship of a nation accustomed to a monarchy clothed in the splendour of divine right but also embodied in palpably real people. Whatever else the Tudors may have been, they were aggressively alive, sculpted in the round, formidable personalities of the kind that create living legends in their own lifetime and do not lose their vitality even in death. The Queen's long reign accomplished the promise of her father's rule; the age of Elizabeth is rightly regarded, not only by historians but also in the popular memory, as a time of greatness breeding greater things still than it actually witnessed.
    • Geoffrey Elton, ‘Queen Elizabeth’, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government: Papers and Reviews 1946-1972. Volume One: Tudor Politics/Tudor Government (1974), p. 238
  • Elizabeth pursued the only policy open to a sixteenth-century monarch: she promoted her country's interests by promoting her own, tried to avoid military or diplomatic defeat, tried to preserve unity at home, tried to adjust her resources to the sacred cause of public display. Certainly she sought ‘greatness’, but if she had to define it she would have spoken of Henry V and Henry VIII rather than of unknown lands over the seas.
    • Geoffrey Elton, ‘Queen Elizabeth’, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government: Papers and Reviews 1946-1972. Volume One: Tudor Politics/Tudor Government (1974), p. 243
  • God has put into your hands the balance of power and justice, to poise and counterpoise at your will the actions and counsels of all the Christian kings of your time.
    • Geffray Fenton's dedication to Elizabeth in his translation of Francesco Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia (1579), quoted in Alfred Vagts, ‘The Balance of Power: Growth of an Idea’, World Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Oct., 1948), p. 97
  • She seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister and gives her orders and has her way as absolutely as her father did.
    • Duke of Feria to Gonzalo Perez (14 December 1558), quoted in Calendar of Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs: Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas. Vol I. Elizabeth. 1558–1567, ed. Martin A. S. Hume (1892), p. 7
  • It appears to me that she is a woman of extreme vanity, but acute. I would say that she must have great admiration for the King her father's mode of carrying on matters.
    • Duke of Feria to King Philip II, quoted in Patrick Fraser Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary: with the Contemporary History of Europe, Illustrated in a Series of Original Letters never before printed: with Historical Introductions and Biographical and Critical Notes, Vol. II (1839), p. 498
  • [O]ur thanks, most due, to Almighty God, what cause have we all Englishmen so to do, that is, to render most ample thanksgiving to the mercifulness of God, who hath granted, conserved, and advanced, to the seat-regal of this realm, so good, godly, and virtuous a queen; such a chosen instrument of his clemency, so virtuously natured, so godly disposed, so merciful without marring, so humble without pride, so moderate without prodigality, so maidenly without pomp.
    • John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe: A New and Complete Edition, Vol. VIII, ed. Stephen Reed Cattley (1839), p. 601
  • In the year '88, I did then live at the upper end of the Strand near St. Clement's Church, when suddenly there came a report unto us...that the Queen was gone to council, and if you will see the Queen you must come quickly. Then we all ran; when the Court gates were set open... the Queen came out in great state. Then we cried, "God save your majesty! God save your majesty!" Then the Queen turned unto us and said, "God bless you all, my good people!" Then we cried again, "God save your majesty! God save your majesty!" Then the Queen said again unto us, "You may well have a greater prince; but you shall never have a more loving prince:" and so looking one upon another awhile the Queen departed. This wrought such an impression upon us, for shows and pageants are ever best seen by torch-light, that all the way long we did nothing but talk what an admirable queen she was, and how we would adventure our lives to do her service.
  • The Queen...presently undertakes Sir Philip; and (like an excellent Monarch) lays before him the difference in degree between Earls, and Gentlemen; the respect inferiors ought to their superiors; and the necessity in princes to maintain their own creations, as degrees descending between the people's licentiousness, and the annoynted Soveraignty of Crowns: how the Gentlemans neglect of Nobility taught the Peasant to insult upon both.
    • Fulke Greville, The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney (1652), p. 79
  • The expansive notions of religious authority and godly activism that found expression in Knox and Goodman's resistance theories would also continue to shape Protestant thought and activism under Elizabeth. English Protestants literally saw Elizabeth's accession as a godsend, and when James Pilkington called for reformation in 1560, he depicted the monarch as playing an important and helpful role in establishing true religion. Rather than making the prince the necessary source of religious authority in England, however, he cast the monarch as a powerful partner in a task that God Himself laid upon all His people, a task that must proceed, with or without the monarch's assistance. Elizabeth completely rejected this limited view of her authority- just as she rejected the notion that even her most exalted subjects could demand that she name a successor or execute a fellow monarch- but to her great consternation, many of her most fervent subjects did not.
    • Karl Gunther, Reformation Unbound: Protestant Visions of Reform in England, 1525-1590 (2014), p. 157
  • [T]he person of our Salomon her gratious Majesty, whome I feare not to pronounce to have received the same Heroicall spirit, and most honorable disposition, as an inheritance from her famous father.
    • Richard Hakluyt, 'The Epistle Dedicatorie', The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Vol. I [1589] (1885), p. 8
  • Her mind was oftimes like the gentle air that cometh from the westerly point in a summer's morn; 'twas sweet and refreshing to all around her. Her speech did win all affections; and her subjects did try to show all love to her commands; for she would say, her state did require her to command what she knew her people would willingly do from their own love to her. Herein did she show her wisdom fully; for who did choose to loose her confidence; or who would withhold a show of love and obedience, when their sovereign said it was their own choice and not her compulsion? Surely she did play well her tables to gain obedience thus without constraint; again could she put forth such alterations, when obedience was lacking, as left no doubtings whose daughter she was.
    • John Harington to Robert Markham (1606), quoted in Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. II (1818), p. 445
  • The queen did fish for men's souls, and had so sweet a bait that no one could escape her net-work.
    • Christopher Hatton, quoted in Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, From the Norman Conquest; with Anecdotes of Their Courts, Vol. VI (1847), p. 309
  • Now, if ever any person had either the gift or the skill to winne the hearts of people, it was this Queene; and if ever shee did expresse the same, it was at that present, in coupling mildnesse with majesty as she did, and in stately stouping to the meanest sort. All her faculties were in motion, and every motion seemed a well guided action: Her eye was set upon one, her eare listened to another, her judgement rane upon a third, to a fourth shee addressed her speech: Her spirit seemed to be everywhere, and yet so entire in her selfe, as it seemed to bee no where else. Some she commended, some she pitied, some she thanked, at others she pleasantly and wittily jeasted, concerning no person, neglecting no office; and generally casting forth such courteous countenances, gestures and speeches, that thereupon the people againe redoubled the testimonies of their joy and afterwards, raising every thing to the highest straine, filled the cares of all men with immoderate extolling their Prince.
    • John Hayward, The Beginning of the Reign of Queene Elizabeth (1636), pp. 448-449
  • If where religion was concerned Elizabeth made "no windows into the hearts of men," she certainly left us the most unexpected window into her own soul. It is in the form of her own personal Book of Devotions... These prayers are far-and-away the most interesting of any that we have from Elizabeth's hand. They are written in a simple straightforward manner, and they reveal a deep personal faith which has every token of sincerity.
    • J. P. Hodges, The Nature of the Lion: Elizabeth I and Our Anglican Heritage (1962), p. 131
  • So the development of the galleon enabled the rich and powerful colonial empire of Spain to plot the destruction of Elizabeth’s reign and the restoration of a Catholic English state. In 1582, Spain began construction of a new Armada.
    In light of Spain’s new military project, and with no imminent Turkish threat to English soil, Elizabeth I made the daring move to send the first English ambassador to Constantinople to bargain with Sultan Murad III of the Ottoman Empire. William Harborne was chosen for the task, having travelled to Constantinople throughout the 1570s with British merchants in the Levant Trading Company. Through her ambassador, Elizabeth and Murad corresponded back and forth in Latin, each concerned with Spanish and Habsburg dominance. Murad was quite beguiling in his treatment of the sovereign of England, referring to Elizabeth as:The pride of women who follow Jesus, the most excellent of the ladies honored among the Messiah’s people, the arbitress of the affairs of the Christian community, who trails the skirts of majesty and gravity, the queen of the realm of Ingiltere, Queen Eliz’ade. Ambassador Harborne, in turn, referred to Murad as “the most august and benign Caesar”—illustrating Elizabeth’s view that England did not perceive the Ottomans as conquerors, while also diplomatically casting Murad as the rightful successor of the Byzantine Empire. Elizabeth’s ultimate goal was to persuade Murad to attack Spain as a diversion, so that England would have time to prepare for Spain’s assault of the English coast. While Elizabeth’s proposed Anglo–Ottoman alliance was never quite realized, trade between England and the Ottoman Empire flourished under the Levant Company.
  • So it was that in 1585, with the Anglo–Spanish War nearly upon Elizabeth’s shore, Elizabeth and Murad discussed an Anglo–Ottoman alliance against Catholic Spain grounded in religious commonality. Though the alliance never came to fruition, the resulting trade agreements between the two peoples gave England the impetus to become a worldwide empire of its own. Because England was a Protestant state, outside of papal authority, it was in a favored position to seek an alliance with the Ottoman Empire. Further, as a consequence of ignoring the 1578 papal ban on Christians dealing in arms with Muslims, England was in an ideal position to trade prosperously with the Ottomans—to the neglect of the Catholic states.
  • Her hands were ever working for the defence of the Faith, defending it at home, defending it abroad, for her selfe defending it, and defending it for others; ever in travell for this holy businesse.
    • Christopher Lever, The History of the Defenders of the Catholique Faith (1627), p. 337, quoted in Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society, 1559-1625 (1982), p. 2
  • That great Queen has now been lying two hundred and thirty years in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. Yet her memory is still dear to the hearts of a free people.
    • Thomas Macaulay, 'Nare's Memoirs of Lord Burghley', The Edinburgh Review, volume 55 (1832), p. 281
  • A succession of dark plots, formed by Roman Catholics against the life of the Queen and the existence of the nation, kept society in constant alarm. Whatever might be the faults of Elizabeth, it was plain that, to speak humanly, the fate of the realm and of all reformed Churches was staked on the security of her person and on the success of her administration. To strengthen her hands was, therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant; and that duty was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was still left him, and shouted "God save the Queen!" The sentiment with which these men regarded her has descended to their posterity. The Nonconformists, rigorously as she treated them, have, as a body, always venerated her memory.
  • She was the most remarkable princess that has appeared in the world for these many centuries. In all her actions she displayed the greatest prudence... I say, in conclusion, she was the most prudent in governing, the most active in all business, the most clear-sighted in seeing events, and the most resolute in seeing her resolutions carried into effect... in a word, [she] possessed, in the highest degree, all the qualities which are required in a great prince.
    • Nicolo Molin (1607), Venetian Ambassador in England, quoted in Frederick Chamberlain, The Private Character of Queen Elizabeth (1922), pp. 156–157
  • She had high Notions of the sovereign Power of Princes, and of her own absolute Supremacy in Church Affairs: And being of Opinion that all Methods of Severity were lawful to bring her Subjects to an outward Uniformity, she countenanced all the Engines of Persecution, as Spiritual Courts, High Commission, and Star-Chamber, and stretched her Prerogative to support them beyond the Laws, and against the Sense of the Nation. But with all these Blemishes Queen Elizabeth stands upon Record as a wise and politick Princess, for delivering the Kingdom from the Difficulties in which it was involved at her Accession; for preserving the Protestant Reformation against the potent Attempts of the Pope, the Emperor, and King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and her Popish Subjects at home; and for advancing the Renown of the English Nation beyond any of her Predecessors. Her Majesty held the Balance of Europe, and was in high Esteem with all foreign Princes, the greatest Part of her Reign; and tho' her Protestant Subjects were divided about Church Affairs, they all discover'd a high Veneration for her Royal Person and Government; on which Accounts she was the Glory of the Age in which she lived, and will be the Admiration of Posterity.
    • Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists, From the Reformation to the Death of Queen Elizabeth (1732), p. 602
  • It is difficult to convey a proper appreciation of this amazing Queen, so keenly intelligent, so effervescing, so intimate, so imperious and regal. She intoxicated Court and country, keyed her realm to the intensity of her own spirit. No one but a woman could have done it, and no woman without her superlative gifts could have attempted it without disaster.
  • This woman was as vital as Winston Churchill, and, like him, made romantic leadership an art of government. The name ‘Gloriana’ and the phrase ‘via media’ seem odd companions. But the liberal way of life is richest and fullest, and it was well for England that when men's passions led them from it, Queen Elizabeth preserved the tradition. Her Puritan fanatics had no more obstinate opponent: she, in turn, had no more devoted worshippers. It is the strangest paradox of her reign and the supreme tribute to her greatness.
    • J. E. Neale, Essays in Elizabethan History (1958), p. 124
  • Greater than Alexander she was, for the world which he subdued by force, she conquered by love.
    • Richard Niccols, Epicedium. A Funeral Oration upon the death of the late deceased Princesse of famous memorye, Elizabeth. Written by Infelice Academico Ignoto (1603), quoted in Richard Niccols, Selected Poems, ed. Glyn Pursglove (1992), p. 231
  • Elizabeth, great empress of the world,
    Britannia's Atlas, star of England's globe,
    That sways the massy sceptre of her land,
    And holds the royal reins of Albion.
    • George Peele, Polyhymnia (1590), lines 3–6, quoted in The Works of George Peele, Volume the Second, ed. A. H. Bullen (1888), p. 287
  • Commonwealth schoolchildren are often taught one of the key events in British history with the help of a mnemonic: "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded." Beheaded! In 1536 Henry had his wife Anne Boleyn decapitated on trumped-up charges of adultery and treason because she gave him a son that did not survive, and he had become attracted to one of her ladies-in-waiting. Two wives later he suspected Catherine Howard of adultery and sent her to the ax as well. (Tourists visiting the Tower of London can see the chopping block for themselves.) Henry was clearly the jealous type: he also had an old boyfriend of Catherine’s drawn and quartered, which is to say hanged by the neck, taken down while still alive, disemboweled, castrated, decapitated, and cut into four. The throne passed to Henry’s son Edward, then to Henry’s daughter Mary, and then to another daughter, Elizabeth. “Bloody Mary” did not get her nickname by putting tomato juice in her vodka but by having three hundred religious dissenters burned at the stake. And both sisters kept up the family tradition for how to resolve domestic squabbles: Mary imprisoned Elizabeth and presided over the execution of their cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and Elizabeth executed another cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth also had 123 priests drawn and quartered, and had other enemies tortured with bone-crushing manacles, another attraction on display in the Tower. Today the British royal family is excoriated for shortcomings ranging from rudeness to infidelity. You’d think people would give them credit for not having had a single relative decapitated, nor a single rival drawn and quartered.
  • She was most lavishly attired in a gown of pure white satin, gold-embroidered, with a whole bird of paradise for panache, set forward on her head studded with costly jewels, wore a string of huge round pearls about her neck and elegant gloves over which were drawn costly rings. In short she was most gorgeously apparelled, and although she was already seventy four, was very youthful still in appearance, seeming no more than twenty years of age. She had a dignified and regal bearing, and, as noted above, rules her kingdom with great wisdom in peace and prosperity and the fear of God, has up till now successfully confronted her opponents with God's help and support, as can be testified by all the histories, and although her life has often been threatened by poison and many ill designs, God has preserved her wonderfully at all times.
    • Thomas Platter, Thomas Platters Travels In England, 1599, trans. Clare Williams (1937), p. 192
  • In 1603 King James VI of Scotland succeeded the childless Queen Elizabeth I on the throne of England as James I. Thereafter, although frequently professing an intimate attachment to their ancient kingdom, both he and his son King Charles I, who succeeded him in 1625, regarded themselves first and foremost as English monarchs. Scotland nevertheless still retained its own parliament, referred to as the Estates, and therefore its own quite separate system of government. Unfortunately, moves initiated by Charles I in 1633 with the aim of bringing both the Scottish church and legal system into line with English practice proved to be a disastrous mistake. In 17th century Britain religion and politics were still inextricably linked, and the monarchy's temporal and religious prerogatives were both the subject of passionate debate among the influential classes. Less than a century beforehand the struggle between Roman Catholic and Protestant had seen religious martyrs burned alive at the stake; and despite Elizabeth's generally successful establishment of the Anglican Protestant church of England created by her father Henry VIII, both her reign and that of James I were intermittently troubled by Roman Catholic conspiracies.
    • Stuart Reid, Scots Armies in the English Civil War (1999), p. 3
  • John Hawkins made three trips to West Africa in the 1560s, and stole Africans whom he sold to the Spanish in America. On returning to England after the first trip, his profit was so handsome that Queen Elizabeth I became interested in directly participating in his next venture; and she provided for that purpose a ship named the Jesus. Hawkins left with the Jesus to steal some more Africans, and he returned to England with such dividends that Queen Elizabeth made him a knight. Hawkins chose as his coat of arms the representation of an African in chains.
  • Queen Elizabeth is the greatest of English, perhaps of all modern sovereigns. In a period remarkable for long and sanguinary wars, she made her name respected abroad, without a waste of blood or treasure; and, in a time of great political ferment, she maintained the most absolute authority at home, without any loss of the affections of her people. She obtained glory without conquest, and unlimited power without odium.
    • John, Earl Russell, An Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution from the Reign of Henry VII. to the Present Time (1865), p. 26
  • She hath been highly valued since her death, the best of any former sovereign over us. She was fitted for fortune's darling but with some improvement to mould her for the rule and sovereignty of a kingdom... she showed her justice and piety as a precedent to posterity... She was magnificent comparativè with other princes, which yet she disposed frugally, having always much to do with little money.
    • William Sanderson, quoted in William Haller, Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation (1963), pp. 235-236
  • Elizabeth I got it absolutely right in her famous speech at Tilbury, when she said, in effect, I may be a goddess but I'm also flesh and blood, "resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live and die amongst you all". She told them she was there to take up arms, "I myself will be your General Judge and Rewarder of virtues in the field". It was fantastic, so moving, so dazzling, so proto-Churchillian. There wasn't a dry eye anywhere. It was a masterpiece of propaganda and she meant it all. She was there as goddess, monarch and chief executive of Britannia Inc – the perfect synthesis of all three at last.
  • All the modern life and greatness of England can be traced to those forty-four years in which so many old thoughts were forgotten and so many new thoughts were conceived. This is Elizabeth's work... [W]hen we consider her, not in herself but in relation to English history, we ask, what was her work? And we answer that the greatness of it can scarcely be exaggerated, so that if, in her own language, she was married to that generation of Englishmen we may add that she is the mother of all generations that have succeeded.
    • John Robert Seeley, The Growth of British Policy: An Historical Essay, Volume I (1895; second edition, 1897), p. 250
  • This royal infant—heaven still move about her—
    Though in her cradle, yet now promises
    Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
    Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be...
    A pattern to all princes living with her,
    And all that shall succeed...
    She shall be loved and feared. Her own shall bless her;
    Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
    And hang their heads with sorrow...
    In her days every man shall eat in safety
    Under his own vine, what he plants, and sing
    The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours...
    She shall be, to the happiness of England,
    An aged princess. Many days shall see her,
    And yet no day without a deed to crown it.
    Would I had known no more. But she must die—
    She must, the saints must have her—yet a virgin,
    A most unspotted lily shall she pass
    To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
  • If it be a reproach to us that women have reigned over us, ’tis much more to the princes that succeeded our Henry, that none of them did so much imitate him in his government as Queen Elizabeth. She did not go about to mangle acts of parliament, and to pick out what might serve her turn, but frequently passed forty or fifty in a session, without reading one of them. She knew that she did not reign for herself, but for her people; that what was good for them, was either good for her, or that her good ought not to come into competition with that of the whole nation; and that she was by oath obliged to pass such laws as were presented to her on their behalf.
    • Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, ed. Thomas G. West (1996), pp. 577-578
  • She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs; she is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all.
    • Pope Sixtus V (in the autumn of 1585), as reported in Walter Walsh, The Jesuits in Great Britain (1903), p. 111
  • [H]er presence and princely encouragement, Bellona-like, infused a second spirit of love, loyaltie, and resolution into every souldier in her Armie; who, being (as it were) ravished with their Souveraygne's sight, that [all] (as well Commanders as common souldiers) quite forgate the ficklenesse of fortune and the chance of Warre, and prayed heartily the Spanyards might land quickly; and, when they knew they were fled, they beganne to lament.
    • John Stow, recording Elizabeth's visit to Tilbury in 1588, Annals (1615 edn.), p. 748, quoted in Miller Christy, ‘Queen Elizabeth's Visit to Tilbury in 1588’, The English Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 133 (Jan., 1919), p. 58
  • I acquiesce in the eulogy bestowed upon her by Thuanus, who concludes his enumeration of her great abilities by saying that she had those of a king, not merely as such, but of a very great king. I cannot bestow praises upon the Queen of England equal to the abilities which I discovered in her in this short time, both as to the qualities of her heart and of her understanding.
    • Duke of Sully, quoted in Frederick Chamberlain, The Private Character of Queen Elizabeth (1922), p. 157
  • In all the centuries that have passed, there has never been seen a woman who could be considered the equal of this great Queen.
  • To her own people she boasted on her accession that she was ‘mere English.’ Her mother had been no foreign princess but an English flirt, and her father, the founder of England's Navy and of England's religious independence, had possessed a sixth sense whereby he understood the English people, even in the highest rages of his tyranny. She inherited from both, but most from her father in whose steps it was her ambition to walk. If she was heir to her mother's vanity and coquetry, she heeded the warning of her fate; and her own bitter experiences as a girl,—disgrace, imprisonment and danger of death,—had taught her, as Frederic the Great was taught by similar experiences in boyhood, that private affections and passions are not for Princes. She had learnt every lesson that adversity had to teach, and she would leave it to her rival to lose the world for love.
  • There was in her a certain hardness and coarseness of fibre, necessary perhaps for her terrible task in life. As a private person she would scarcely have been lovable, perhaps not even very admirable. But lonely on the throne she knew all the arts to make herself adored by her Court and her people. Without ceasing to be a woman, and while loving life in its fullness, she made everything subservient to purposes of State. Her learning endeared her to the Universities, her courage to the soldiers and sailors. Her coquetry became a means of keeping her nobles and courtiers each in his place, and exacting from each one the last ounce of personal devotion in the public service. Leicester's neck might be tickled by the royal hand, but his rival Cecil would be trusted in matters of high policy... Her love of hunting and dancing, masque, pageantry and display, was used to strengthen the wider popularity which was her ultimate strength; her public appearances and progresses through the country, which she thoroughly enjoyed, were no dull and formal functions, but works of art by a great player whose heart was in the piece, interchanges of soul between a Princess and her loving people.
  • The Queen sitting all alone in her splendid coach appeared like a goddess such as painters are wont to depict.
    • Lupold von Wedel, recalling Elizabeth's arrival at St James's Palace in London on 12 November 1584, quoted in Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreigners, ed. Victor Von Klarwill (1928), p. 329
  • [T]he most glorious Sun that ever shined in our Firmament of England (the never to be forgotten Queen Elizabeth, of happy memory).
  • Queen Elizabeth, a princess, as ye wot, of no mingled blood of Spaniard or stranger, but born mere English here among us and therefore most natural unto us; of education, brought up and instructed in all virtuous qualities and godly learning, specially (that may be most comfort and joy to us all), in the sincere knowledge and following of God's Holy Word; of natural inclination, so godly disposed as without revenge she patiently suffered so much malice and wrong; of wisdom, so ware as she may shun the inconveniences and follies that her sister fell in.
    • Speech in York upon Elizabeth's accession (1558), quoted in Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1559–1560, preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, ed. Joseph Stevenson (1865), p. ix
  • On the 14th of January [1603] the late Queen who had two days before sickened with a cold...removed to Richmond. But a little before her going, even the same morning, the Earl of Nottingham, High-Admiral of England, coming to her...she fell into some speech of the Succession; and then she told him, “that her seat had ever been the throne of Kings, and none but her next heire of bloud and descent should succeed her.”
    • Anonymous manuscript in the Cotton library, quoted in John Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. III (1823), p. 607
  • [On 23 March 1603 the] lord admirall put her mind of her speech, concerning the succession...and that they, in the name of all the rest of her councell, came unto her to knowe her pleasure who should succeede. Whereunto she thus replyed; “I told you my seat had been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascall to succeed me, and who should succeed me, but a king?” The lords not understanding this darke speech, and looking the one on the other, at length Mr Secretary boldly asked her, what she meant by these words, “That no rascall should succeed her?” whereunto she replyed, “That her meaning was, that a king should succeed her, and who,” quoth she, “should that be, but our cozen of Scotland.” They asked her whether that were her absolute resolution? whereunto she answered, “I pray you trouble me no more. I'll have none but him;” with which answer they departed.
    • Anonymous, The Death of Queen Elizabeth, with her Declaration of her Successor, quoted in A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on the most Interesting and Entertaining Subjects, but chiefly such as relate to the History and Constitution of these Kingdoms; selected from an infinite number in print and manuscript in the Royal, Cotton, Sion and other Public as well as private Libraries, particularly that of the Late Lord Somers, Vol. I , ed. Walter Scott (2nd. edn., 1809), p. 247
  • In Eighty Eight how she did fight
    Is known to all and some,
    When the Spaniard came, her courage to tame,
    But had better have stay'd at home:
    They came with Ships, fill'd full of Whips,
    To have lash'd her Princely Hide;
    But she had a Drake made them all cry Quake,
    And bang'd them back and side.
    • Anonymous, Upon the Death of Queen Elizabeth, quoted in Bertrand T. Whitehead, Brags and Boasts: Propaganda in the Year of the Armada (1994), p. 200
  • A Tudor! A Tudor! We've had Stuarts enough,
    None ever reign'd like old Bess in her ruff.
    • A Dialogue between the Two Horses (1676), quoted in John Miller, Popery and Politics in England, 1660–1688 (1973), p. 74 and Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714, ed. George de F. Lord (1963), p. 281
  • Britannia's Figure once could Passion move,
    And Princes either fear'd or sought her Love.
    When fam'd Eliza gave one single Nod,
    The Spaniard bow'd, nay cring'd and fear'd her Rod
    • London Evening Post (17 April 1739), quoted in Philip Woodfine, Britannia's Glories: The Walpole Ministry and the 1739 War with Spain (1998), p. 85
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