A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Elizabeth, Queen of England
ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND,
Was the daughter of Henry the Eighth, by his second wife, Anne Boleyn, and born September 7th., 1533. Upon the king's marriage with Jane Symour, in 1535, she was declared illegitimate, with her half-sister Mary; and the succession to the crown established on the king's issue by his third wife. Her mother, at her death, had earnestly recommended her to the care of Dr. Parker, a great reformer, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; who had the charge of her education, and instructed her carefully in the principles of the Christian religion. She spent her youth in the manner of a private person, and was unmolested; but, when her sister Mary ascended the throne, she was imprisoned on suspicion of being concerned in Lady Jane Grey's promotion; and in March, 1557, committed to the Tower. She came near losing her life, for Bishop Gardiner was against her, supposing popery but half re-established while she lived; but Philip of Spain, Mary's husband, interceded for her, and saved her. For as Philip and Mary had no children, he considered that if Elizabeth were removed, the crown of England, after Mary's death, would pass to Mary of Scotland, who had just married the dauphin of France. And his hatred of France proved stronger than his zeal for his religion. Nevertheless, Elizabeth underwent great sufferings and ill-treatment during her sister's reign.
Elizabeth begin to reign in 1558. She was then twenty-five, and highly accomplished. Her person was graceful, her carriage noble and majestic, and though her features were not regular, yet her fair complexion, her lustrous eyes, and intelligent animated expression, scarcely suffered smaller imperfections to be observed. She was endowed with great talents, enlarged, cultivated, and refined by education. She wrote letters in English and Italian at thrirteen; and, before she was seventeen, was perfect in the Latin, Greek, and French, and not unacquainted with other European languages. She also studied philosophy, rhetoric, history, divinity, poetry, and music, and everything that could improve or adorn the mind. Her first object after her accession, was to restore the Protestant religion; to this she was led by interest as well as principle, for she clearly perceived, if she professed Popery, that she must allow her father's divorce from Catharine of Arragon to be void, and consequently herself illegitimate; and this would have annulled her pretensions to the crown. She has been strongly suspected by some of an inclination to the Roman Catholic religion; but there is no proof of this. Indeed she was the real foundress of the English Episcopal Church, as it now exists. True, she was greatly assisted by her counsellor Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh; still Elizabeth herself always held the reins of government over the church, as well as over the state; and what she founded and upheld steadily for fifty years, must have been conformable to her own faith.
The queen, while she was a princess, had a private proposal of marriage from the King of Sweden; but she declared "she could not change her condition," though it was then very disagreeable. Upon her becoming queen, Philip of Spain, her late sister's husband, made an offer of himself to her, which she declined. In the first parliament of her reign, the house of commons addressed her, and represented to her how necessary it was, for the happiness of the nation, that she should think of marrying. She replied, "That by the ceremony of inauguration, she was married to her people, and her subjects were to her instead of children; that they should not want a successor when she died; and that, for her part, she should be very well contented to have her tomb-stone tell posterity, 'Here lies a queen, who reigned so long, and lived and died a virgin.'" Several matches were afterwards proposed to her by her people, and many distinguished personages were desirous of uniting themselves to this illustrious princess, but she maintained her celibacy.
It was not long before Elizabeth, by the advice of her council, began to interfere in the affairs of Scotland. Mary, the young queen of that country, was the next heir in blood to the crown of England; and as the zealous Romanists considered the birth of Elizabeth illegitimate, and her succession as rendered invalid by the papal excommunication she had undergone, they regarded Mary as the true sovereign of England. In accordance with this idea, when Queen Mary died, Mary of Scotland and her husband, the Dauphin of France, openly assumed the arms and title of English royalty. This act of hostility Elizabeth never forgot. When Mary returned to Scotland, some ineffectual attempts were made to induce Elizabeth to recognize her as presumptive successor to the English throne; but Elizabeth then, as ever afterwards, displayed the greatest aversion to the nomination of a successor. The matter was suffered to rest, and the two queens lived together in apparent amity. The Queen of England always evinced a weak jealousy of Mary's superior personal charms, and attempted a rivalry in that respect, as mean as it was hopeless. Another weakness of hers was a propensity to adopt court favourites, whom she selected rather on account of their external accomplishments than their merit. This foible was sometimes detrimental to her state affairs; though she generally gave her ministers and counsellors, who were chosen for their real merit, a due superiority in business affairs over her favourites.
One of the most conspicuous of these, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who obtained a great ascendancy over her, aspired to her hand; but she checked his presumption, and proposed him as a husband to the queen of Scotland, whom she had thwarted in every attempt she made to ally herself to a foreign potentate. But when Mary seemed disposed to listen favourably to this proposal, Elizabeth interfered and prevented her rival from taking away her favourite. Elizabeth and her ministers had also fomented those political dissensions which gave Mary so much disquiet.
In 1568, Mary fled from Scotland, and took refuge in England, having previously informed Elizabeth of her determination. The English queen resolved to detain her rival in perpetual imprisonment; in consequence of which two or three rebellions were excited by the Catholics of England, but these were soon quelled by the prompt measures of Elizabeth.
The Puritan party began at this time to give the queen some uneasiness; for with a haughty and arbitrary temper, and a high idea of her prerogative, she was greatly offended by the spirit of civil liberty which, from their earliest rise, marked the Puritans. Elizabeth, however, understood so well the art of making concessions, and at the same time of supporting her dignity, that though she ruled her people with a rigorous hand, she always retained their confidence and affection. Her wise frugality prevented her from being burdensome to the nation; and she is a singular instance of a sovereign who returned a portion of the people's grants. The principal pecuniary cause of complaint in her reign arose from her custom of rewarding her courtiers with monopolies.
One of the most singular instances of contention between feminine weakness and the political prudence of Elizabeth, was her conduct with respect to her suitor, the Duke d'Anjou, youngest brother of Charles the Ninth of France. This prince, about twenty-five years younger than herself, had been encouraged to come over to England, to prosecute his courtship in person. The negotiations for the marriage were nearly completed; and the queen was seen, in public, to take a ring from her own finger, and put it on his, as a pledge of their union. At length, perhaps in consequence of the great dislike of the nation to the match, she suddenly broke off the affair, and sent back the enraged prince to his government of the Netherlands.
In 1585, Elizabeth openly defied the hostility of Spain, by entering into a treaty with the revolted Low Countries, by which she bound herself to assist them with a considerable force, on condition of haying some ports in her hands for her security. She refused the offer, which was twice made, of the sovereignty of these provinces, but stipulated for the admission of her general into the council of the states. The person she chose for this high trust, was the Earl of Leicester, who did little honour to her choice. She at the same time sent a powerful armament against the Spanish settlement of the West Indies, under Sir Francis Drake. She likewise made a league of mutual defence with James, King of Scotland, whose friendship she courted, while she kept his mother imprisoned.
In 1586, a conspiracy was formed against the life of Elizabeth, the detection of which had very important consequences. Ballard, a Catholic priest, induced Anthony Babington, a Derbyshire gentleman of fortune, to undertake the queen's assassination. He was acting in the service of the Queen of Scots, but it is doubtful whether Mary was aware of the intended murder of Elizabeth. The plot was discovered, and letters of Mary found, which rendered her participation in it, to a certain extent, a matter of judicial proof. Fourteen of the principal conspirators were executed, and Mary was tried and condemned to death. Elizabeth, though consenting to her execution, practised all the artifice and dissimulation which belonged to her character, to avoid as much as possible the odium of putting to death a queen and a near kinswoman. She wept and lamented as though she had lost a dear friend; she stormed at her council, and inflicted on her secretary, Davison, who had sent off the warrant, a ruinous fine.
The next great event of this reign was the expedition sent against England, by the Spaniards. A large fleet, the Invincible Armada, as it was called, set sail in the summer of 1588, and presented a more formidable spectacle in the English Channel than had been witnessed for many centuries. Elizabeth exerted all her energy to infuse confidence in her subjects. She rode on horseback through the camp at Tilbury, with a cheerful and undaunted demeanour, and addressed the troops with the true spirit of a hero. Happily the English fleet, aided by the winds, conquered the invincible armada, before it reached the coast. Elizabeth also assisted Henry the Fourth of Navarre, to obtain possession of the throne of France.
In these enterprises by land and sea, the gallant Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, distinguished himself very much. On the death of Leicester, he had succeeded to his place in the estimation of the queen; and his splendid qualities and heroic valour seemed to justify her partiality. Her partiality, however, did not prevent her from asserting her own dignity; and once, when in the heat of debate he had turned his back upon her, she resented the affront by a sound box on the ear. She afterwards mollified his deeply-injured pride, and sent him over to Ireland as Lord-lieutenant. Through his mismanagement the expedition failed. Upon his unpermitted return to justify himself, she at first received him graciously; but after a few hours of reflection her conduct changed so toward him, that he became really ill. This roused the pity of the queen, who sent her physician to him with kind messages. After his recovery, he again lost her favour, and urged by his enemies and his own impetuous temper, Essex broke out in open rebellion against his sovereign. Elizabeth, after a long delay Signed his death-warrant with the most painful reluctance. He was executed in 1600.
In 1601, Elizabeth held a conference with Sully, who came from Henry the Fourth of France, concerning the establishment of a new system of European power, which was to produce a lasting peace. Sully returned much impressed by the solidity and enlargement of her views. See never was more respected abroad, or more beloved and cherished by her subjects, than just at the termination of her reign. But the last scene was darkened by a deep melancholy, and she died in a most deplorable state of despondency.
An incident relative to the unfortunate Essex has been suggested as the cause of her grief. She had given him a ring as a pledge of her affection, promising him at sight of it a favourable hearing, with whatever offences he might be charged. After his condemnation, Essex had sent this ring to the queen by the Countess of Nottingham, who had been persuaded by her husband, an enemy of the Earl, to retain the pledge. On her death-bed, the countess sent for the queen, and revealed the secret to her, entreating her pardon. The queen, in a violent rage, shook the dying countess in her bed, exclaiming, "that God might pardon her, but she never could,"
From this lime she rejected all consolation, refused food, and throwing herself on the floor, passed days and nights without changing her place. Nature, at length, began to sink; and as her end drew near, she was urged to declare her successor. She said she had held a regal sceptre, and would have none but a king to succeed her; and who should that be but her nearest kinsman, the King of Scots? She died March 24th., 1602, in the seventieth year of her age.
Elizabeth was rather noble as a queen, than amiable as a woman. Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who highly admired her, gave her a place among the only three persons then living who deserved to reign—the other two were himself and Henry the Fourth. The character of this great queen has been misunderstood, because she has been judged as a woman rather than as a sovereign. It should never be forgotten, that she voluntarily relinquished the enjoyment of domestic life, where woman's nature is most truly and beautifully displayed, in order to devote herself to the cares of state and the happiness of her people. She should therefore be judged as a ruler; only it should ever be borne in mind that a higher degree of moral power ought to be found in the character of woman, in whatever station she occupies, than is manifested by man. It was this moral sense in which Elizabeth excelled all the kings of England, from the time of Alfred to her own day, that made her power and her glory. This intuitive wisdom guided her in the choice of able counsellors, and kept her true to the best interests of her subjects; and inspired her to preserve the manners of her court in that chastity which is the atmosphere of the highest genius as well as the purest patriotism.
Elizabeth was herself fond of learning, and no mean scholar in her attainments. She was well skilled in the Greek, and translated from that language into Latin, a dialogue of Xenophon, two orations of Isocrates, and a play of Euripides; she also wrote a "Commentary on Plato." From the Latin, she translated "Boethias' Consolations of Philosophy;" "Sallust's Jugorthian War;" and a part of "Horace's Art of Poetry." In the "Royal and Noble Authors of Lord Orford," may be found a catalogue of translations from the French, prayers, meditations, speeches in Parliament, and letters, which testify sufficiently to the learning and general capacity of Elizabeth. She was also skilled in the art of poetry. Being pressed by a Catholic priest, during the life of her sister Mary, while she was undergoing great persecution, to delare her opinion concerning the real presence of Christ in the wafer, she answered in the following impromptu:—
"Christ was 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."
When she was a prisoner at Woodstock, she composed the following verses, and wrote them with charcoal on a shutter:—
"Oh, Fortune! how thy restlesse wavering state
Hath fraught with cares my troubled with
Witness this present prisonn, whither fate
Could beare me, and the joys I quit.
Thou causedest the guiltie to be losed
From bandcs, wherein are innocents inclosed:
Causing the guiltles to be straite reserved,
And freeing those that death had well deserved
But by her envie can be nothing wroughte.
So God send to my foes all they have thoughte."
But more to be praised than her poetry, is the encouragement she gave to the design of printing in English the large folio edition of the Holy Scriptures, known as "The Bishop's Bible." This was the best translation of the sacred book which had then appeared. It was printed in 1568, and the version, made by order of King James the First, differs little from the Bible used by Elizabeth.
That she did not conform her own spirit to the Gospel requirements, but allowed pride, vanity, a violent temper, and selfishness, frequently to obscure her many great qualities, is to be regretted; but, compared with the kings her successors, she rises so high above their standard of character, that we almost forget to record her faults. To quote the remarks of a learned historian,—"The page of history has seldom to record a reign more honourable to the intellect and capacity of the person presiding over it, than that of Elizabeth of England."