Elizabeth, Queen of England and Ireland, was the daughter of Henry VIII. by his second wife, Anne Boleyn, and was born in Greenwich Palace, 7th September 1533. From her father she inherited physical strength, resolution, energy, hauteur, a fiery temper, an inclination both to cruelty and to coarseness, and a passion for splendour; to her mother may be attributed such physical attractions as can be claimed for her, whatever of feminine piquancy flashed fitfully across her essentially masculine life, and probably also her insincerity, her jealousy, and her love of artifice. The marriage of her parents was a secret one, and when, in 1536, her mother was beheaded, and her father married Jane Seymour, she, as well as her half-sister Mary, the daughter of Catharine of Aragon, was declared illegitimate. Her early years were in consequence passed under a cloud, though profitably so far as intellectual discipline was concerned. The governesses and teachers, in whose society she spent most of her time till the death of her sister Mary, and of whom the chief were Lady Bryan, Lady Tyrwhitt, Sir John Cheke, William Grindal, and Roger Ascham, were almost all devotees to the New Learning, while some were adherents of those Reformation principles which her father partially accepted and established in England. Her accomplishments, like her charms, the ardour of her Protestantism, and even her patriotism and political foresight, were exaggerated by the historians-inwaiting of her reign. But it is beyond question that she learned to read Cicero, Sophocles, and even one or two of the Fathers in the original, to speak German and French with fluency, and to acquire a mastery over the then limited technique of music.
During the life of Elizabeth's father, two of her stepmothers, Anne of Cleves and Catharine Parr, looked upon her with a friendly eye, and the latter, but for her father's temper or dislike, would have had her much at court during the closing years of his reign. But till, on the death of Mary, she ascended the throne, she did not play an important part in English politics. During the reign of Edward VI. she, then a girl of sixteen, was subjected to the dubious attentions of Lord Seymour, High Admiral of England, and responded so far to them that her conduct was made the subject of a public inquiry. On her brother's death she took the side of her sister against Lady Jane Grey and the Duke of Northumberland, but her identification with Protestantism aroused the suspicion of Mary and her counsellors, and led to her being implicated in Wyatt's rebellion in 1554, and thrown into the Tower. Subsequently she was strictly guarded in Woodstock, and her adroit and seemingly not altogether insincere conformity to the Catholic ritual was probably the sole cause of her not sharing the fate of the leading Protestants of the time, and being sent to the block.
On the death of Mary, 17th November 1558, Elizabeth, then twenty-five years of age, was summoned to the throne amid the acclamation alike of Protestants, who saw in her advent a cessation to the persecutions of the preceding five years, and of Catholics, who had more than a suspicion of her indifferentism in ecclesiastical and theological matters. Although to the end of her life she retained a liking for the splendour of Catholic ceremonial, and had no sympathy with the doctrines of Geneva, her political sagacity enabled her at once to perceive that her part in Europe must be that of a Protestant sovereign, while her courage led her to act promptly. Having presumably taken the advice of Sir William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burghley), whom three days after her accession to the throne she appointed Chief Secretary, she issued a proclamation to the effect that the church service be read in English, and the elevation of the host be discontinued. She also ordered the English ambassador at Rome to notify to the reigning pontiff, Paul IV., her acceptance of the throne. Paul IV. replied that Elizabeth, being illegitimate, must resign all pretensions to the crown of England, which he claimed a right to dispose of, that country being a fief of the holy see. The only result of this assumption was to make Protestantism and patriotism in England synonymous. The Anglican Church, with its Thirty-nine Articles, its Book of Common Prayer, and its acknowledgment of the headship of the sovereign, was there and then virtually established in its present form. The change that was effected was in no sense a revolution. Of the prelates who were in office when Elizabeth began her reign, only one, Walson, Bishop of Lincoln, agreed to the innovations contained in her proclamation, but of 9000 clergy, fewer than 200 resigned their livings.
To an exceptional extent, even for a sovereign with such strong absolutist instincts as Elizabeth, her life was bound up with the history of England (q.v.). Here, therefore, it will be necessary only to point out how her personal prejudices and opinions, and still more, her likes and dislikes, affected the policy of her country. The great blots upon her reign were the persecution of the Catholics, and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. It is impossible to say now how much feminine jealousy on Elizabeth's part of a woman with greater personal attractions than herself had to do with the precipitation of this tragedy, but it is unquestionable that such jealousy existed. The discovery of designs against her life, such as the Ridolfi plot, had probably also not a little to do with her final determination, and certainly led to the execution of the Duke of Norfolk. The great glory of Elizabeth's reign, on the other hand, was the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588; but for this great national deliverance but slight credit is due to Elizabeth. It is true that, when an army assembled at Tilbury to resist invasion, she showed the courage of her race, and addressed her troops in language which has the genuine ring of patriotism. But it is also true that she at first declined to admit the national danger, although it was apparent to all her advisers, that she hesitated lamentably as to the steps to be taken to meet it, and that her parsimony in such matters as the naval commissariat led to the risk of disaster, and prevented the victory which was actually won from being so complete as otherwise it would have been. The triumph of England over Spain is to be attributed to the wisdom and energy of Elizabeth's advisers, to the skill and courage of the great English captains of the time, and to the generous patriotism of English, and especially of London, merchants.
It would be difficult to say whether the romantic side of Elizabeth's life is more notable for its prominence or for its farciality, if not unreality. From her sixteenth year to her fifty-sixth, one matrimonial scheme or violent passion, not always remarkable for delicacy, succeeded another. Before she ascended the throne, her name was mentioned in connection either with marriage or with love, not only with Admiral Lord Seymour, as already mentioned, but with Edward Courtenay, son of the Earl of Devonshire; the Earl of Arran; Philip of Spain, who married Mary; and Philibert of Savoy. After she became Queen of England, Philip renewed his courtship, while her hand was also solicited by or for Eric, king of Sweden, Henry III. of France, his successor Henry of Navarre, the Archduke Charles of Austria, and the Duke of Alençon. Letters preserved in Hatfield show that she cherished an attachment for the last until he died, worn out with debauchery, in 1584; although at the time they first met she was thirty-eight and he nineteen, and a dwarf with a face horribly disfigured by smallpox. But her heart was most profoundly touched by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (q.v.), master of the horse, an accomplished courtier, and a handsome and clever, though dissolute and essentially shallow man. She indicated her partiality for him even before the death of his wife, the ill-fated Amy Robart. The despatches of the Bishop of Aquila, ambassador of Philip II. in London, represent her indeed as accessory to the 'murder' of Amy, and as being willing to become a Roman Catholic, provided Philip consented to her marriage with Leicester. But the bishop violently disliked Elizabeth, and there is every reason to believe that he was befooled by her, while it is by no means certain that the death of Leicester's wife was the result of foul play. But it is unquestionable that Elizabeth would have married Dudley but for the remonstrances of her chief adviser, the elder Cecil. After Leicester's death, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex (q.v.), succeeded to his position as favourite. But Elizabeth's relations towards Essex, as indicated by outbursts of temper as well as of affection, were essentially those of a mother towards a spoiled child. When Essex was beheaded for rebellion in 1601 she does not seem to have exhibited much grief. The eccentricity of Elizabeth was shown even more in her passion for adulation and extravagance in dress than in her coquetties. Raleigh felt constrained to compare her in a breath to Alexander, Diana, Venus, Orpheus, an angel, and a nymph. She is Shakespeare's 'fair vestal throned by the west,' and Spenser's Gloriana. Paul Hentzner, a German, who saw her going to chapel when she was in her sixty-fifth year, says that at that time she 'had pearls with rich drops in her ears, wore false red hair, had a small crown on her head, her bosom uncovered, her dress white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, a collar of gold and jewels.' So long as she retained any activity she attended theatrical and other pageants; and the more splendid these were, the more they were to her taste. The vigorous style of her dancing was commented on sarcastically by her enemies. The variety and number of her dresses have passed into a proverb. When every allowance has been made for the manner in which Elizabeth's charms were enhanced by her own artifices, and by the flattery of her courtiers, she must still be believed to have had some personal attractions. When young she was noted for her abundance of auburn hair and mobile though regular features, while Hentzner found her 'stately and majestic,' and remarked 'a special beauty in her delicate white hands.'
Patriotic as Elizabeth was after her own peculiar fashion, she was outside of and had no sympathy with either the intellectual or the religious movements of her time. Protestantism in the form of Puritanism she abhorred; she was indifferent to the genius of Shakespeare, though his plays were performed before her. She never advanced beyond the essentially classical studies of her girlhood; yet, in virtue mainly of translations from Greek, Latin, and French, she has been included by Horace Walpole in his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.
A personal interest attaches to the last years of Elizabeth's reign, owing to her great loneliness. This was due in large measure to the fact that her leading advisers and friends, including Burghley, Walsingham, Hatton, Bacon, and Warwick, predeceased her. Their places were taken by other men of ability, Sir Robert Cecil, Burghley's second son, being in particular both a skilful diplomatist and an accommodating courtier. But she never was on exactly the same terms with them as she had been with their predecessors. She also felt lonely in a political sense. She had inherited Tudor views as to the absolute supremacy of the crown over parliament. During the last thirteen years of her reign parliament assembled three times, in 1592, 1597, and 1601, and although, partly owing to her tact and partly to its timidity, no actual collision occurred between them, it protested against monopolies, and sought to curtail Elizabeth's expenditure. With such manifestations of public spirit Elizabeth could have no sympathy, and indeed she felt somewhat of a stranger in her own country, and among a people whose intellectual, religious, and even political ideas were widely different from, and in some cases diametrically opposed to her own. Nevertheless, her indomitable spirit enabled her to retain her zest for the pleasures of life; to the last, too, she retained her indifference to the sufferings of others. As late as the year 1601 she was able to give receptions, to visit at the country-houses of wealthy subjects, and even to comport herself after the fashion of a hoydenish school-girl. Within a few weeks of her death a seminary priest of the name of Richardson was hanged and disembowelled at Tyburn. In the beginning of 1602 those immediately about her noticed a decline in her health. She revived temporarily, however, and was able to ride, hunt, and even dance once more. In the second week of 1603 she caught cold, and never recovered. In February she was seized with sickness, which was aggravated by melancholy. She would take no medicine and little food, refused to go to bed, and rested in silence day and night on cushions. She continued in this condition till March 24, when she died in the presence of her council. She had previously made a sign with her hands in answer to a question by Cecil, which was interpreted as indicating her wish to be succeeded by James VI. of Scotland.
‘The golden days of good Queen Bess’ are more than ever regarded as one of those periods of English history of which we have as a nation much reason to be proud. It is emphatically the period in which England took up her position as a ‘world power,’ and it is impossible to believe that Elizabeth had no personal part in making it what it was. The ‘Virgin Queen,’ it is true, stands revealed by history as cruel, capricious, insincere, at once unpleasantly masculine and weakly feminine, but she was highly popular with her subjects, and this popularity cannot be quite explained away by circumstances outside of herself. She had unquestionably the invaluable faculty—in her case it amounted almost to genius—of selecting as her advisers on political affairs the most capable of the men around her.
See the Lives by Miss Strickland (new ed. 1864) and Bishop Creighton (sumptuously illustrated, 1896; smaller reprint, 1899). M. Wiesener (Paris, 1878; trans. 1879) deals with her youth. The most reliable authorities on the public events of her reign are the calendars of the state papers, especially the calendar of the MSS. at Hatfield, and the calendar (1509–1603) of the state papers relating to Scotland. Among historical works dealing with this period, Mr Froude’s, in spite of the doubts which have been thrown on his accuracy by able critics, is still the best and most exhaustive. Hallam, Lingard, Birch’s Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1754), Wright’s Queen Elizabeth (1838), Dean Church’s Elizabeth (1889), Beesly’s Queen Elizabeth (1892), and Motley’s Dutch Republic and United Netherlands should also be consulted. Essays on Elizabeth are innumerable; that of Dr Jessopp (1889), contributed to The Dictionary of National Biography, will be found exceptionally bright and comprehensive. See also the articles MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS; BURGHLEY, ARMADA, LEICESTER, ESSEX, DRAKE, RALEIGH; and for the Elizabethan Literature, see ENGLAND (LITERATURE OF), and DRAMA.