Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
ELIZABETH (1533-1603)
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: ECG-EMS
del.icio.us it!
|
See also: This unprincipled adventurer, even before Catherine's death in September 1548, paid indelicate attentions to Elizabeth. Any See also:attempt to marry her without the See also:council's leave would have been See also:treason on his part and would have deprived Elizabeth of her contingent right to the succession. Accordingly, when Seymour's other misbehaviour led to his See also:arrest, his relations with Elizabeth were made the subject of a very trying investigation, which gave Elizabeth her first lessons in the feminine arts of self-See also:defence. She proved equal to the occasion, partly because she was in all See also:probability See also:innocent of anything worse than a qualified acquiescence in Seymour's improprieties and a girlish admiration for his handsome See also:face. He or his tragic See also:fate may have touched a deeper chord, but it was carefully concealed; and although in later years Elizabeth seems to have cherished his memory, and certainly showed no love for his brother's See also:children, at the See also:time she only showed resentment at the indignities inflicted on herself. For the See also:rest of Edward's reign Elizabeth's See also:life was less tempestuous. She hardly rivalled See also:Lady Jane See also:Grey as the ideal Puritan See also:maiden, but she swam with the stream, and was regarded as a See also:foil to her stubborn See also:Catholic sister. She thus avoided the enmity and the still more dangerous favour of See also:Northumberland; and some unknown See also:history lies behind the See also:duke's preference of the Lady Jane to Elizabeth as his son's wife and his own puppet for the throne. She thus escaped shipwreck in his crazy See also:vessel,and rode by Mary's See also:side in See also:triumph into See also:London on the failure of the See also:plot. For a time she was safe enough; she would not renounce her Protestantism until Catholicism had been made the law of the See also:land, but she followed See also:Gardiner's See also:advice to her See also:father when he said it was better that he should make the law his will than try to make his will the law. As a presumptive ruler of England she was, like See also:Cecil, and for that See also:matter the future See also:arch-See also:bishop See also:Parker also, too shrewd to commit herself to passive or active resistance to the law; and they merely anticipated See also:Hobbes in holding that the individual committed no See also:sin in subordinating his See also:conscience to the will of the See also:state, for the responsibility for the law was not his but the state's. Their position was well enough understood in those da;'s; it was known that they were heretics at See also:heart, and that when their turn came they would once more overthrow Catholicism and expect a similar submission from the Catholics. It was not so much Elizabeth's See also:religion as her nearness to the throne and the circumstances of her birth that endangered her life in Mary's reign. While Mary was popular Elizabeth was safe; but as soon as the See also:Spanish marriage project had turned away English See also:hearts Elizabeth inevitably became the centre of plots and the See also:hope of the plotters. Had not Lady Jane still been alive to take off the edge of Mary's indignation and suspicion Elizabeth might have paid forfeit for See also:Wyat's See also:rebellion with her life instead of imprisonment. She may have had interviews with See also:French agents who helped to foment the insurrection; but she was strong and wary enough to avoid Henry II.'s, as she had avoided Northumberland's, toils; for even in See also:case of success she would have been the French king's puppet, placed on the throne, if at all, merely to keep it warm for Henry's prospective daughter-in-law, Mary See also:Stuart. This did not make Mary Tudor any more friendly,and,although.the See also:story that Elizabeth favoured See also:Courtenay and that Mary was jealous is a ridiculous fiction, the Spaniards cried loud and See also:long for Elizabeth's See also:execution. She was sent to the See also:Tower in See also: No sovereign since Harold had been so purely English in See also:blood; her nearest See also:foreign ancestor was Catherine of See also:France, the widow of Henry V., and no English king or queen was more superbly insular in character or in policy. She was the unmistakable child of the See also:age so far as Englishmen shared in its characteristics, for with her English aims she combined some See also:Italian methods and ideas. " An Englishman Italianate," ran the current jingle, " is a See also:devil incarnate," and Elizabeth was well versed in Italian scholarship and statecraft. Italians, especially Bernardino See also:Ochino, had given her religious instruction, and the Italians who rejected Catholicism usually adopted far more advanced forms of See also:heresy than Lutheranism, Zwinglianism, or even Calvinism. Elizabeth herself patronized Giacomo Acontio, who thought See also:dogma a " stratagema Satanae," and her last favourite, See also:Essex
was accused of being the ringleader .of " a damnable See also:crew of atheists." A Spanish ambassador early in the reign thought that Elizabeth's own religion was equally negative, though she told him she agreed with nearly everything in the See also:Augsburg See also:Confession. She was probably not at See also:liberty to say what she really thought, but she made up by saying a great many things which she did not mean. It is clear enough that, although, like her father, she was fond of See also:ritual, she was absolutely devoid of the religious temperament, and that her ecclesiastical preferences were dictated by See also:political considerations. She was sincere enough in her dislike of Roman jurisdiction and of Calvinism; a daughter of Anne Boleyn could have little affection for a See also:system which made her a See also:bastard, and all monarchs agreed at heart with See also: The outlines of her foreign policy are sketched elsewhere (see ENGLISH HISTORY), and her courtships were See also:diplomatic. Contemporary See also:gossip, which was probably justified, said that she was debarred from See also:matrimony by a See also:physical defect; and her cry when she heard that Mary queen of Scots had given birth to a son is the most womanly thing recorded of Elizabeth. Her features were as handsome as Mary's, but she had little See also:fascination, and in spite of her many suitors no See also:man lost his See also:head over Elizabeth as men did over Mary. She was far too masculine in mind and temperament, and her extravagant addiction to the outward trappings of femininity was probably due to the See also:absence or See also:atrophy of deeper feminine instincts. In the same way the impossibility of marriage made her all the freer with her flirtations, and she carried some of them to lengths that scandalized a public unconscious of Elizabeth's See also:security. She had every See also:reason to keep them in the dark, and to convince other courts that she could and would marry if the provocation were sufficient. She could not marry See also: Nor was it See also:personal enmity on Elizabeth's part that brought Mary to the See also:block. Parliament had long been ferociously demanding Mary's execution, not because she was guilty but because she was dangerous to the public See also:peace. She alone could have given the Spanish See also:Armada any real See also:chance of success; and as the prospect of invasion loomed larger on the See also:horizon, fiercer See also:grew the popular determination to remove the only possible centre of a domestic rising, without which theexternal attack was See also:bound to be a failure. Elizabeth resisted the demand, not from compassion or qualms of conscience, but because she dreaded the responsibility for Mary's death. She wished See also:Paulet would See also:manage the business on his own See also:account, and when at last her See also:signature was extorted she made a scapegoat of her secretary See also:Davison who had the See also:warrant executed. The other great difficulty, apart from the succession, with which Elizabeth had to See also:deal arose from the exuberant aggressiveness of England, which she could not, and perhaps did not want to, repress. Religion was not really the cause of her See also:external dangers, for the time had passed for See also:crusades, and no foreign See also:power seriously contemplated an armed invasion of England for religion's sake. But no state could long tolerate the affronts which English See also:seamen offered See also:Spain. The See also:common view that the See also:British See also:Empire has been won by purely defensive See also:action is not tenable, and from the beginning of her reign Englishmen had taken the offensive, partly from religious but also from other motives. They were determined to break up the Spanish See also:monopoly in the new world, and in the pursuit of this endeavour they were led to See also:challenge Spain in the old. For nearly See also:thirty years Philip put up with the See also:capture of his treasure-See also:ships, the raiding of his colonies and the open assistance rendered to his rebels. Only when he had reached the conclusion that his power would never be secure in the See also:Netherlands or the New World until England was conquered, did he despatch the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth delayed the See also:breach as long as she could, probably because she knew that See also:war meant See also:taxation, and that taxation was the most prolific See also:parent of revolt. With the defeat of the Spanish Armada Elizabeth's See also:work was done, and during the last fifteen years of her reign she got more out of See also:touch with her people. That See also:period was one of See also:gradual transition to the conditions of Stuart times; during it practically every claim was put forward that was made under the first two Stuarts either on behalf of parliament or the See also:prerogative, and Elizabeth's attitude towards the Puritans was hardly distinguishable from James I.'s. But her past was in her favour, and so were her sex and her Tudor tact, which checked the growth of discontent and made Essex's rebellion a ridiculous fiasco. He was the last and the most wilful but perhaps the best of her favourites, and his tragic fate deepened the gloom of her closing years. The loneliness of a queen who had no See also:husband or children and no relatives to mention must at all times have been oppressive; it grew desolating in old age after the deaths of Leicester, See also:Walsingham, See also:Burghley and Essex, and Elizabeth died, the last of her See also:race, on the 24th of March 1603. Bishop See also:Creighton's Queen Elizabeth (1896) is the best See also:biography; there are others by E. S. See also:Beesly (Twelve English Statesmen, 1892) ; See also:Lucy See also:Aikin, See also:Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (1818); and T. See also:Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times (1838). See also A. Jessopp's See also:article in the See also:Diet. Nat. Biog. (A. F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] ELIZABETH |
[next] ELIZABETH (1596-1662) |