The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

For some time, Elizabeth was allowed to reside in the same palace with the infant Edward, and she displayed the greatest affection for him. When she was seven years old she made the little prince a birthday gift of “a shyrte of cam’yke of her owne woorkynge,” which was quite precocious, considering her tender years.

The Princess Mary evinced great regard for her sister Elizabeth; and when the brutal King Henry deposed both these princesses from their rights of succession, and stigmatized them as illegitimate, and sent word to Mary that she should no longer treat Elizabeth as princess, Mary wrote a letter to her father, the king, in which she kindly mentioned Elizabeth thus: “My sister Elizabeth is in good health, and such a child, too, as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.”

Anne of Cleves was granted permission to see Elizabeth, even after her divorce, providing Elizabeth did not address her as queen; and all of the wives of Henry VIII. evinced great love for the Princess Elizabeth; and through the influence of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII. restored Elizabeth to her right of succession, although the act which pronounced her illegitimate remained forever unrepealed; and after she had become queen of England, she refrained from requiring Parliament to repeal those acts of her father which had declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void; and she contented herself with an act of Parliament which declared in general terms her rights of succession to the throne.

While the youthful Edward VI. was king, the Princess Elizabeth was involved in certain questionable relations with the Lord High Admiral Seymour, who had married the Queen-Dowager Catherine, a few weeks after the death of Henry VIII.

Upon the death of Catherine, a year afterwards, Lord High Admiral Seymour aspired to the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. There is no doubt that Elizabeth loved Seymour; and, as she acknowledged, would have married him if the consent of the royal executors could have been obtained; but as such an alliance was considered beneath her, Elizabeth was shut up for a time in a sort of imprisonment, and the lord high admiral was conveniently disposed of by being led to the scaffold.

It is amusing to note that the hand of this much-courted and confirmed-spinster queen was once offered by Henry VIII. to a Scottish earl of equivocal birth and indifferent reputation, who actually declined the honor. But Elizabeth, when queen of England, proudly refused earls, dukes, and even kings, though it must be confessed she served the king of Sweden, who was one of her most constant suitors, rather meanly; for this royal lover sent her a magnificent present consisting of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ships’ loads of the most precious articles his country could produce, which princely gift Elizabeth most graciously received, but wrote to this ardent lover, that she anxiously hoped he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitless voyage, – rather strange royal etiquette, to receive the suitor’s gift and then reject the giver.

Regarding Elizabeth’s mental acquirements, her learned preceptor, Roger Ascham, thus wrote: —

“The Lady Elizabeth hath accomplished her sixteenth year; and so much solidity of understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have never been observed at so early an age. She has the most ardent love of true religion and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than hers, no memory more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English; Latin with fluency, propriety, and judgment; she also speaks Greek with me frequently, willingly, and moderately well. Nothing can be more elegant than her handwriting, whether in Greek or Roman characters. In music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight. With respect to personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendor, so despising the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing gold, that in the whole manner of her life she rather resembles Hippolita than Phœdra.

“She read with me almost the whole of Cicero and a great part of Livy; from these two authors, indeed, her knowledge of the Latin language has been almost exclusively derived. The beginning of the day was always devoted by her to the New Testament in Greek, after which she read select portions of Isocrates, and the tragedies of Sophocles, which I judged best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a defence against the utmost power of fortune. For her religious instruction she drew first from the fountains of Scripture, and afterwards from St. Cyprian, Melancthon, and similar works. In every kind of writing she easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetched expression. By a diligent attention to these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice that there was nothing in Greek, Latin, or English, prose or verse, which, according to its merits or defects, she did not either reject with disgust or receive with the highest delight.”

After the accession of Mary to the throne, the Wyatt rebellion took place: and as it was reported that the Princess Elizabeth was implicated, she was confined for three months in the Tower. Elizabeth was then conveyed to Woodstock, where she endured a less rigorous imprisonment. Her correspondence was carefully watched, and it was with great difficulty that she succeeded at length in appealing to the queen. It was at this time that she wrote upon her window with a diamond the following lines: —

“Much suspected, of meNothing proved can be,Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.”

As her Protestant proclivities were well known, when by the marriage of Mary to Philip of Spain, Popedom was re-established in England, Elizabeth thought it policy to attend the confessional; and upon one occasion being asked what was her belief regarding the “blessed sacrament,” she gave this famous and ambiguous answer: —

“Christ was the word that spake it;He blessed the bread and brake it.And what the word did make it,That I revere and take it.”

During this imprisonment, Elizabeth received a message from the queen, offering her immediate liberty on condition of her accepting the hand of the Duke of Savoy in marriage. But the proud princess preferred imprisonment to compulsory wedlock, and she continued for some time longer in forced seclusion. At length Philip, the husband of Queen Mary, who seemed to be the person most persistent in regard to this marriage of Elizabeth, now resolved to try more lenient measures, as severity would not coerce her into obedience. The princess was accordingly released from her imprisonment, and invited to a grand ball at the palace, to which the duke was also welcomed as a guest. Elizabeth was attired for this occasion in a robe of white satin embroidered all over with pearls; but the matrimonial matters do not seem to have advanced favorably, notwithstanding; and the death of Queen Mary soon after left Philip of Spain a widower, and he himself now became a suitor for the hand of the young Queen Elizabeth. But to his suit, also, Elizabeth turned a deaf ear, and Philip was henceforth her bitterest enemy.

At the time of the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England, the English people were much divided in religious opinions consequent upon the three important theological changes which had taken place in the short space of twelve years.

“King Henry VIII. retained the ecclesiastical supremacy, with the first-fruits and tenths; maintained seven sacraments, with obits and mass for the quick and the dead.

“King Edward VI. abolished the mass, authorized one Book of Common Prayer in English, with hallowing the bread, and wine, etc., and established only two sacraments.

“Queen Mary restored all things according to the Church of Rome, re-established the papal supremacy, and permitted nothing within her dominions that was repugnant to the Roman Catholic Church. But the death of Mary was the ruin of all abbots, priors, prioresses, monks, and nuns.

“Elizabeth, on her accession, commanded that no one should preach without a special license; that such rites and ceremonies should be used in all churches as had been used in her Highness’ chapel; and that the Epistles and Gospel should be read in the English tongue; and in her first Parliament, held at Westminster, in January, 1559, she expelled the papal supremacy, resumed the first-fruits and tenths, repressed the mass, re-introduced the Book of Common Prayer and the sacraments in the English tongue, and finally firmly re-established the Protestant Church of England.”

Her Majesty was twenty-five years of age at the time of her coronation. She sent the usual notification of her accession to the throne to the Pope at Rome. But in answer, the fiery-spirited old man thundered forth his maledictions at her presumption in daring to assume the crown without his leave. Elizabeth, in reply, took upon herself the audacious title of “the Head of the Church,” and boldly ignored the pontifical anathemas. But she disliked the strict Presbyterians, or Puritans, as they were then called, almost as much as she did the Roman Catholics. Their great leader, Knox, had published a pamphlet upon female government, entitled “The First Blast of the Trumpet, Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” This was more than the proud queen could stand, and Knox and the Puritans felt the power of her displeasure. She was not over fond of preachers or of preaching, and remarked “that two or three were enough for a whole country.” When her clergy discoursed upon subjects distasteful to her in their sermons, she would frequently call out in her chapel, and command the preacher to change the subject or restrain an exhortation which she considered too bold. She had not the slightest idea of tolerating any opinions contrary to her own august will; and she told the Archbishop of Canterbury that “she was resolved that no man should be suffered to decline either on the left or on the right hand from the drawn line limited by her authority and injunctions.”

But we have not space to give either the religious or political aspects of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. When, in 1558, the death of Queen Mary was announced to her by a deputation from the privy council who came to Hatfield where she was then staying to salute her as queen, she appeared much overpowered by the solemnity of the occasion, and exclaimed, as she sank upon her knees in devotion: “It is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes!”

She afterwards adopted as a motto in Latin for her gold and silver coins, “I have chosen God for my helper.”

On being conducted with much pomp to the royal apartments in the Tower, attended by an immense concourse of people who graciously greeted her, she remarked upon entering the well-remembered Tower where she had once been received through the traitor’s gate as a prisoner, but now entered the royal palace as acknowledged sovereign: “Some have fallen from being princes in this land to be prisoners in this place. I am raised from being prisoner in this place to be a prince of this land; so I must yield myself thankful to God and merciful to man, in remembrance of the same.” She was crowned on the 15th of January, 1558, with great splendor. Upon the morning after her coronation, as she was proceeding to chapel, one of her courtiers cried out with loud voice, requesting that four or five prisoners might be released. Upon the queen’s asking whom these prisoners might be, he replied: “The four Evangelists and the Apostle St. Paul, who have been long shut up in an unknown tongue, and are not able to converse with the people.”

Elizabeth answered this strange appeal by remarking: “It is best to inquire of them whether they approve of being released or not.”

The result of a convocation held for the discussion of this subject was a new translation for common use.

In the first session of Parliament a deputation was sent to Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, requesting that her Grace might think of marriage, to which Elizabeth replied:

“In a thing which is not very pleasing to me, the infallible testimony of your good will and all the rest of my people is most acceptable. As concerning your eager persuasion of me to marriage, I must tell you I have been ever persuaded that I was ordained by God to consider, and above all, to do those things which appertain to his glory. And therefore it is that I have made choice of this kind of life. To conclude, I am already bound unto a husband, which is the kingdom of England, and let that suffice you;” saying which she extended her finger upon which she wore the ring with which the ceremony of her coronation had been performed. This same demand of the Parliament was subsequently repeated many times, but until the end of her life Elizabeth took pleasure in keeping England and the world in suspense by her grave coquetries, which from time to time betokened a probable marriage which she herself never apparently desired. Proposals for her hand poured in from every court of Europe, but though she entertained some of them for a time, she always managed to break them off in the end. The man whom she probably really desired to marry after she became queen was her favorite Dudley, whom she afterwards created Earl of Leicester. So great was her evident fancy for this man that she might have consented had he been free; and when the sudden and suspicious death of his wife left his hand at her disposal, the horror of the people who believed him guilty of wife-murder restrained her from thus lowering her queenly dignity. In spite of deceit and all kinds of wily intrigues, this subtle sycophant succeeded in retaining his place as favorite until his death, notwithstanding his base plots and false pretensions.

The century immediately preceding the reign of Elizabeth was renowned for three most illustrious events, – the invention of printing, which took place about 1448; the discovery of America in 1492; and the reformation in 1517.

The age of Elizabeth was also fertile in great events and in great men. “It was the age of heroism and genius, of wonderful mental activity, extraordinary changes and daring enterprises, of fierce struggles for religious or political freedom. It produced a Shakespeare, the first of poets; Bacon, the great philosopher; Hooker, the great divine; Drake, the great seaman, and the first of English circumnavigators; Gresham, the great merchant; and Sydney, noblest of courtiers; and Spenser, and Raleigh, and Essex, names renowned in history and song. In other countries we find Luther, the reformer; and Sully, the statesman; Ariosto and Tasso; Cervantes and Camöens; Michel Angelo, Titian, and Correggio; Palestrina, the father of Italian music; all these, and many other famous men never since surpassed were nearly contemporary; it was an age of greatness, and Elizabeth was great and illustrious in connection with it.”

The reign of “Good Queen Bess” has been held in reverence, in comparison with that of “Bloody Mary,” her sister, which was stamped with infamy; and the “Elizabethan age” is one of the most illustrious in the annals of literature.

The government of Elizabeth was acknowledged to have been admirably managed, as regards her foreign policy, her wars, treaties, and alliances with other European powers. With the exception of Leicester and Hatton, her statesmen were well chosen. Lord Burleigh was her prime minister for forty years, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, and his more famous son, Francis, were among her wise and remarkable ministers.

Navigation, manufactures, and trade, made great advance during her reign. She was the first to establish trade with Turkey and Russia, and was the first sovereign who sent ambassadors to those courts. Mirrors and drinking-glasses from Venice, also porcelain and damask linen were then first introduced into England; but with all this advance forks were still unknown, and Queen Elizabeth, and her elegant belaced courtiers, and her stately beruffed dames, still ate with their fingers.

The first pair of knitted silk stockings ever made in England was presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1560 by her silk-woman. So much did she enjoy this luxury of dress, that she henceforth discarded her hose of cloth, and never after wore any other than those of silk.

Although her preceptor had described the youthful Princess Elizabeth as plain and sombre in her mode of dress, Queen Elizabeth was famous for her extravagant and showy costumes, and her great vanity regarding her appearance. So outrageous in size did her favorite ruffs become, when the fashion was adopted by her court ladies, that a royal proclamation was issued limiting them to a certain number of inches in height, Elizabeth retaining the privilege of wearing them larger and higher than any of her ladies; and bishops thundered forth their condemnations regarding the growing extravagance of dress, cautioning their hearers against “fine-fingered rufflers, with sable about their necks, corked slippers, trimmed buskins, and warm mittens. These tender Parnels” said they, “must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer; one furred through, another but faced; one for the work-day, another for the holy-day; one of this color, another of that; one of cloth, another of silk or damask. Change of apparel, one afore dinner, another after; one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey; and to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new and strange fashions. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than he should spend in a year; he who ought to go in a russet coat spends as much on apparel for himself and his wife as his father would have kept a good house with.”

“The costumes of that age were magnificent. Gowns of velvet or satin, richly trimmed with silk, furs, or gold lace, costly gold chains, and caps or hoods of rich materials, adorned with feathers, decorated on all occasions of ceremony the persons not only of nobles and courtiers, but of their retainers, and even of the substantial citizens. The attire of the ladies was proportionally splendid. Hangings of cloth, of silk, and of velvet, cloth of gold, and cloth of silver, or ‘needle-work sublime’ adorned on days of family festivities the principal chamber of every house of respectable appearance; and on public festivals these rich draperies were suspended from the balconies, and, combined with the banners and pennons floating overhead, gave to the streets an appearance resembling a suite of long and gayly dressed salons.”

Queen Elizabeth was very fond of display and gorgeous pageants, and her royal progresses were always attended with magnificent spectacles of various kinds: sometimes a splendid water procession on the Thames; again, she rode on horseback, attended by lords and ladies attired in crimson velvet, with their horses caparisoned with the same rich material.

The band of gentlemen pensioners, which was the boast and ornament of Elizabeth’s court, was composed of the flower of the English nobility, and to be admitted to serve in its ranks was regarded as a high distinction.

Music was much in fashion in Elizabeth’s court, and she excelled Mary, Queen of Scots, on keyed instruments, though Mary played best upon the lute. An instrument resembling a small guitar was much used as an accompaniment to the voice.

Elizabeth gave little patronage to painting or architecture; the former art she encouraged only so far as regarded the multiplication of pictures of herself. At length so many were the poor portraits of her which appeared, and were mostly caricatures of her royal face and person, that the queen issued a proclamation prohibiting all persons from drawing, painting, or engraving her countenance or figure, until some perfect pattern should be made by a skilful limner. But her painters did not flatter her as much as her poets.

“The portraits remaining of Elizabeth show how vile, how tawdry, and how vulgar was her taste in art. They could hardly be fine enough to please her; they seem all made up of jewels, crowns, and frizzled hair, powdered with diamonds, and ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things; and from the midst of this superfluity of ornament, her pinched Roman nose, thin lips, and sharp eyes peer out with a very disagreeable effect, quite contrary to all our ideas of grace or majesty.” She was so little capable of judging a work of art that she would not allow a painter to put any shadows upon the face, because, she said, “shade is an accident, and not in nature.”

Many stories are told illustrating Elizabeth’s extreme vanity. Sir John Harrington relates: —

“That Lady M. Howard was possessed of a rich border powdered with golde and pearle, and a velvet suite belonging thereto, which moved many to envye; nor did it please the queene, who thought it exceeded her own. One daye the queene did sende privately, and got the lady’s rich vesture, which she put on herself, and came forthe the chamber among the ladies. The kirtle and border was far too shorte for her majestie’s height, and she asked every one how they liked her new-fancied suit. At length she asked the owner herself ‘if it was not made too short and ill-becoming,’ which the poor ladie did presentlie consent to. ‘Why, then, if it become not me as being too shorte, I am minded it shall never become thee as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.’ This sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned herself herewith any more.”

The sight of her own face in a mirror, as she grew old and became still more unprepossessing in appearance, threw her into “transports of rage,” and towards the end of her life she discontinued the use of a mirror, and it is said that her tire-women “sometimes indulged their own hatred and mirth, and ventured to lay upon the royal nose the carmine which ought to have embellished the cheeks,” confident that her aversion to a mirror would screen their pranks. Still the herd of flatterers around her were forced to address her as a goddess of beauty, and she actually seemed to think she could play the part of a Venus at the age of sixty-five. Or she was at least pleased when her fawning courtiers called her one.

Sir James Melville gives this amusing account of Elizabeth’s jealousy of the beauty and attractions of her hated rival, Mary, Queen of Scots. Melville had been sent from Scotland to London by Mary, to interview Elizabeth concerning certain matters. Sir James writes: “At divers meetings we had conversations on different subjects. The queen, my mistress, had instructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merry purposes, lest otherwise she should be wearied, she being well informed of her natural temper. Therefore, in declaring my observations of the customs of Holland, Poland, and Italy, the buskins of the women were not forgot, and what country weed I thought best becoming gentlewomen. The queen said she had clothes of every sort, which every day thereafter, so long as I was there, she changed.

“One day she had the English weed, another day the French, another the Italian, and so on. She asked me which of them became her best? I answered, in my judgment the Italian dress; which answer I found pleased her well, for she delighted to show her golden-colored hair, wearing a caul and a bonnet, as they do in Italy. Her hair was rather reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally. She desired to know what color of hair was reputed best; and whether my queen’s hair or hers was best; and which of them was fairest? I said she was the fairest queen in England, and mine in Scotland; yet still she appeared earnest. I then told her they were both the fairest ladies in their respective countries; that her Majesty was whiter, but my queen was very lovely. She inquired which of them was highest in stature. I said my queen. Then said she, ‘She is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low.’ She inquired if she played well upon the lute and the virginals? I said reasonably for a queen.

“That same day, after dinner, my Lord of Hunsdon drew me to a quiet gallery, that I might hear some music, – but he said he durst not avow it, – where I might hear the queen play upon the virginals. After I had harkened awhile, I stood by the tapestry that hung before the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was towards the door, I ventured within the chamber and stood at a pretty space, hearing her play excellently well; but she left off immediately as soon as she turned about and saw me. She appeared surprised and came forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alleging that she used not to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy. She asked how I came there. I answered, as I was walking with my Lord of Hunsdon we passed by the chamber door; I heard such melody as ravished me, whereby I was drawn in ere I knew how; excusing my fault of homeliness, as being brought up in the court of France, where such freedom was allowed; declaring myself willing to endure whatever punishment her Majesty should please to inflict upon me for so great an offence. Then she sat down low upon a cushion, and I upon my knees by her, but with her own hand she gave me a cushion to place under my knee, which at first I refused, but she compelled me to take it. She then called for my Lady Strafford out of the next chamber, for the queen was alone. She inquired whether my queen or she played best. In that I found myself obliged to give her the praise. She said my French was very good, and asked if I could speak Italian, which she spoke reasonably well. I told her Majesty I had no time to learn that language, not having been above two months in Italy. Then she spoke to me in Dutch, which was not good, and would know what kind of books I most delighted in, whether theology, history, or love matters. I said I liked well of all the sorts.