As my mate, Lucía Callero, has written about Anne Boleyn, I am going to write about Elizabeth I, her daughter.
Biography Elizabeth I
The reign of Queen Elizabeth
I is often referred to as The Golden Age of English history.
Elizabeth was an immensely popular Queen, and her popularity has waned
little with the passing of four hundred years. She is still one of the
best loved monarchs, and one of the most admired rulers of all time. She
became a legend in her own lifetime, famed for her remarkable abilities
and achievements. Yet, about Elizabeth the woman, we know very little.
She is an enigma, and was an enigma to her own people.
Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She was born on 7
September 1533 at Greenwich Palace. Her birth was possibly the greatest
disappointment of her father's life. He had wanted a son and heir to succeed
him as he already had a daughter, Mary, by his first wife, Katherine of
Aragon. He had not divorced Katherine, and changed the religion of the
country in the process, to have only another daughter. Elizabeth's early
life was consequently troubled. Her mother failed to provide the King with
a son and was executed on false charges of incest and adultery on 19 May
1536. Anne's marriage to the King was declared null and void, and Elizabeth,
like her half-sister, Mary, was declared illegitimate and deprived of her
place in the line of succession.
The next eight years
of Elizabeth's life saw a quick succession of stepmothers. For generations, historians have debated whether the constant
bride changing of her father was responsible for Elizabeth's apparent refusal
to marry. It is certainly possible that the tragic fates of Anne Boleyn
and Catherine Howard impressed upon her a certain fear of marriage, but
there may have been other reasons for the Queen's single state, such as
a fear of childbirth, which claimed the lives of a significant number of
women in this period. Even if the Queen had no personal reservations about
marriage, there were political problems with almost every contender for
her hand. Religion was a major divisive issue, and there was also the problem
of whether Elizabeth would have to relinquish any of her royal powers to
a husband in an age when the political sphere was exclusively male.
As a child,
Elizabeth was given a very impressive education. It had become
popular amongst the nobility to educate daughters as well as sons and
Elizabeth excelled at her studies. She was taught by famous scholars
such as William Grindal and Roger Ascham, and from an early age it
was clear that she was remarkably gifted. She had an especial flare
for languages, and by adulthood, she could reputedly speak five
languages fluently.
Elizabeth's
adolescence was no easier than her childhood. While the King lived,
she was safe from political opportunists, but when he died in the
January of 1547, and his young son became King Edward VI,
she was vulnerable to those who saw her as a political pawn. Despite
being officially illegitimate, Henry had reinstated his daughters in
the line of succession. Mary was to follow Edward, and Elizabeth was
to follow Mary. This meant that Elizabeth was now second in line to
the throne. Edward was too young to rule himself as he was only nine
years old, so his uncle, Edward Seymour, became Protector of England.
His younger brother, Thomas Seymour, was jealous of his position and
attempted to overthrow him. His scheme, which involved an attempted
kidnapping of the Boy King, cost him his life. He had made no secret
of his desire to marry Elizabeth (in Tudor times a girl was
considered of marriageable age at twelve) so she was implicated in
his plot. It was treason for an heir to the throne to marry without
the consent of the King and his Council, and at only fifteen years of
age, Elizabeth had to persuade her interrogators that she knew
nothing of the plot and had not consented to marry the King's uncle.
She succeeded in defending her innocence, but rumours of an illicit
affair with Seymour, all the more scandalous because he had been
married to her last step-mother, Katherine Parr, (before she died in
childbirth), plagued her long afterwards.
Elizabeth again
found herself implicated in treason after the Wyatt rebellion of
1554. Edward had died in the summer of 1553 from prolonged ill
health, and Elizabeth's half-sister, Mary, was now Queen Mary I
of England after a brief fight for the throne against the scheme of
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, to make his daughter in law,
Jane Grey, queen. Mary was not a particularly popular monarch, and
was suspicious of her Protestant half-sister. It was thus not
difficult to persuade her that Elizabeth may have been conspiring
with Thomas Wyatt and his men to seize the throne. Whether or not the
rebellion was to make Elizabeth queen is uncertain, and it is also
unknown whether Elizabeth had any knowledge of the conspirators
plans. Even if she did have knowledge of them, there is no evidence
that she approved of the actions of Wyatt and his followers.
Elizabeth said she was innocent of the accusations made against her,
but she was still arrested and sent to the Tower of London as a
prisoner.
Many of those
surrounding the Queen would have liked Elizabeth to have been
executed, but there was no evidence against her and she was popular
with the people. Elizabeth was kept a captive at the Tower for two
months and then removed to Woodstock Manor in Oxfordshire, where she
was kept a prisoner for a year. The house itself was uninhabitable so
she had to be lodged in the gatehouse with her servants. It was only
at the behest of the Queen's husband, Philip of Spain, that she was
allowed to return to her childhood home of Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
Philip was aware of the Queen's poor health and wanted to gain the
friendship of Elizabeth to ensure peaceable relations between England
and Spain should his wife die and Elizabeth succeed to the throne.
Elizabeth did
finally succeed to the throne on 17th November 1558. It was a moment
of supreme triumph for the unwanted daughter who had spent her life
in the shadow of the court, cast aside and forgotten. The years
following the death of her father had called for sobriety and
caution, but now that she was Queen, Elizabeth was determined to
enjoy her new found freedom and live life to the full. She loved all
kinds of sports, especially horse riding, and in the early years of
her reign spent many an hour riding. She also loved hunting, hawking,
bear baiting, and watching the male courtiers excel at jousts or
other sporting contests. She loved music and dancing, pageantry and
masques, and could even play the virginals and the lute herself with
skill. She had no time for the Puritan theologians who deemed such
things impious. She also loved watching plays and created the
atmosphere responsible for the flourishing of the literary
masterpieces of the period against the Puritan demands for the
closure of all theatres and playhouses.
Elizabeth was
crowned Queen on Sunday 15th January 1559. In the months that
followed, the new Queen re-established the Protestant Church in
England and restored the debased coinage. Perhaps to appease
Catholics or to appease those who did not believe a woman could
become head of the church, Elizabeth became Supreme Governor of the
Church of England, rather than Supreme Head as her father had been.
While it is impossible to know what exactly the Queen's personal
religious beliefs were, the Church she established is an indication
of them. She was a committed Protestant, and reputedly spent time in
prayer every day, but she was probably a conservative Protestant. She
liked candles and crucifixes in her private chapel, liked church
music, and enjoyed the more traditional style of worship in contrast
to the sermon based service that was becoming popular in some
Protestant circles. She did not like religious extremism and did not
want to persecute any of her people for their religious beliefs.
However, the tenacious political nature of the Catholic/Protestant
split meant that her government had to take a harsher line towards
Catholics than she wanted.
Now that
Elizabeth was Queen, proposals of marriage flooded in, but Elizabeth
committed herself to none of them. In a genius of political wheeling
and dealing, she managed to use her single state to benefit the
country by using the bait of marriage to draw in enemies, or to
frighten them by suggesting she would marry one of their foes.
Whatever Elizabeth's personal feelings towards marriage, on two
occasions she did come close to matrimony. For many years, the most
serious contender for her hand was Robert Dudley, created Earl of
Leicester in 1564. He and Elizabeth had known each other for years
and had been imprisoned in the Tower of London at the same time. He
was the only serious personal love interest of the Queen's life.
Politically, however, marrying him would have been a disaster. He was
unpopular as he was the son of the traitor Northumberland, and was
loathed even more after his wife was found dead in mysterious
circumstances. It was thought he had murdered her so he would be free
to marry Elizabeth. The other serious contender for the Queen's hand
was Francis, Duke of Alencon/Anjou, heir to the French throne. But
again, political considerations made the match ultimately impossible.
Not
marrying and having a child of her own meant that the succession was
unsettled. Elizabeth did not like to talk about the succession and
tried to have talk of it suppressed, but people were anxious about
what would happen to the country when she died. However, having a
child of her own may not have been an end to all problems. In the
eyes of Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate and had no right to the
throne. To them, Mary, Queen of Scots was the rightful Queen of
England. Plots were made to make Mary queen and these would have been
formed regardless of whether Elizabeth had a child or not. This is
perhaps especially so when Mary was Elizabeth's prisoner following
her disastrous reign in Scotland.
Forced
to flee her own country, having abdicated her throne in favour of her
son, she landed in England, seeking Elizabeth's help in restoring her
to her kingdom. She was immediately imprisoned. This was as much to
protect her as to minimize the danger she posed to Elizabeth. Mary
was kept a prisoner for almost twenty years. In that time, Elizabeth
refused to hear about executing her cousin, but Mary's complicity in
the Babington plot of 1586 made the execution, in the eyes of many,
unavoidable. It was a traumatic time for Elizabeth, and for a while
it seemed that she would not have the strength to go ahead with the
execution, but she did, and Mary was executed at Fotheringay Castle
on 8 February 1587.
Relations
between Elizabeth and Philip, now King of Spain, had begun amicably,
but had deteriorated over the years as their different political and
religious agendas clashed. By 1588 they were enemies of the
first-rate. Philip had spoken of invading England and dethroning
Elizabeth for years but the execution of the Queen of Scots gave him
an added incentive. Now he could claim the English throne for himself
and not for her. In the summer of 1588 he sent his mighty fleet
against England. But by superior tactics, ship design, and sheer good
fortune, the English defeated them. Elizabeth's popularity reached
its zenith. It was also another personal triumph as she had proved
that she, a woman, could lead in war as well as any man.
Elizabeth
was dedicated to her country in a way few monarchs had been or have
been since. Elizabeth had the mind of a political genius and nurtured
her country through careful leadership and by choosing capable men to
assist her, such as Sir William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham.
Elizabeth was a determined woman, but she was not obstinate. She
listened to the advice of those around her, and would change a policy
if it was unpopular. In appearance she was extravagant, in behaviour
sometimes flippant and frivolous, but her approach to politics was
serious, conservative, and cautious. When she ascended the throne in
1558, England was an impoverished country torn apart by religious
squabbles. When she died at Richmond Palace on the 24th March 1603,
England was one of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the
world.
(Clara Ruiz Estela)
