Lecture 05

Elizabeth I (1533-1603), queen of England and Ireland (1558-1603), daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was the longest-reigning English monarch in nearly two centuries and the first woman to successfully occupy the English throne.

Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace in London on September 7, 1533. Her parents, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, wanted a son as heir and were not pleased with the birth of a daughter. When she was two her mother was beheaded for adultery, and Elizabeth was exiled from court. The noted scholar Roger Ascham later served as her tutor, and he educated her as a potential heir to the throne rather than as an insignificant daughter of the monarch. Elizabeth underwent rigorous training in Greek, Latin, rhetoric, and philosophy and was an intellectually gifted pupil. Later she wrote poetry of merit that she may have published under a different name.

W hen I was fair and young and favor graced me,

Of many was I sought, their mistress for to be:

But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore,

'Go, go, go, seek some other where:

Importune me no more.’

How many weeping eyes I made to pine with woe,

How many sighing hearts, I have no skill to show:

Yet I the prouder grew and answered them therefore,

‘Go, go, go, seek some other where:

Importune me no more.’

Then spake fair Venus' son, that proud victorious boy,

And said, 'Fine Dame, since that you be so coy,

I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more,

‘Go, go, go, seek some other where:

Importune me no more.’

When he had spake these words, such change grew in my breast

That neither night nor day, since that, I could take any rest:

Then lo, I did repent that I had said before,

‘Go, go, go, seek some other where:

Importune me no more.’

3.4.2. The nation that Elizabeth inherited was experiencing a steady increase in population. During the 16th century the population of England and Wales would roughly double. The continued population growth placed strains on the economy, which was made worse by serious harvest failures. Prices for food and clothing skyrocketed in what became known as the Great Inflation.

Elizabeth’s government enacted legislation known as the Poor Laws, which made every local parish responsible for its own poor, created workhouses, and severely punished homeless beggars.

The pope excommunicated Elizabeth, sanctioning Catholic efforts to dethrone her. An international conspiracy was uncovered to assassinate her in favor of her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Although Mary was beheaded, such plots did not end until England defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Called Glorianna and Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth enjoyed enormous popularity during her life and became an even greater legend after her death. Her reign was noted for the English Renaissance, an outpouring of poetry and drama led by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and Christopher Marlowe that remains unsurpassed in English literary history.

The following excerpt is from a modern historical novel entitled Legacy and written by the English novelist Susan Kay (1985). Read it for pleasure and decide which kind of portrait the author is trying to present to the reader.

"Across the wide sweep of Hatfield park an arrow sang through the cold January air and struck the target, narrowly missing the bull's eye.

'Well aimed, madam,' said a softly approving voice at her side, 'but if I might suggest the slightest alteration of Your Grace's stance — may I make so bold?'

He moved behind her, drawing back her long fingers to the heavy bow so that his arms for a brief moment almost embraced her. She glanced up at him quickly over her shoulder and the pale sunlight glinted on the brilliant hair caught inside a silver snood.

'Try that now, madam.'

The arrow flew wide, missing the target completely this time and she turned to him with a helpless smile which made him feel distinctly heated.

'I think,' she said innocently, 'you will have to show me again.'

There was very little that Roger Ascham, that young and highly able Cambridge scholar, had ever found it necessary to show his pupil more than once. He had held his new position as tutor for several months now, chosen, at her very particular insistence, in spite of the objections of her former guardians. He felt as though in all his life he had never truly lived before this moment, that he would never want, never hope, for anything more but to school the remarkable, retentive mind which was now in his sole charge, a mind which he knew would one day far outstrip his own and conceivably every other mind around it. It was a curious, vital, throbbing entity, the brain of a brilliant boy (he could never quite accept it as a girl's) trapped inside an entirely feminine shell. Body and brain were an astonishing combination which alternately delighted and disconcerted him. He was on fire with the desire to make her the most accomplished royal lady in Europe, but sometimes he suspected the heat originated from an entirely different source. Increasingly, beneath the pleasure he found in her company, he was aware of an undercurrent of shamed confusion. He was glad when the lesson was over and they began to argue the merits of mathematics. The subject vexed rather than titillated his senses and he welcomed it, for really, he was beginning to doubt the ethics of his position here. She encouraged him quite shamelessly to make a fool of himself. It would be easy to take advantage of her youth and inexperience, but he was in a unique position of trust and the last thing she could afford now was another scandal. Once or twice he had considered resignation and put the thought from hastily. Things were not quite as bad as that — yet.

‘Madam, any change in the itinerary of your studies is quite out of the question at the moment. The programme you propose would be too taxing for — '

‘For a girl,' she smiled. 'Roger Ascham, you got this post under false pretences. I understood you were a man with advanced ideas. '

He blushed furiously and thought: A little too advanced, if only you knew, madam!.."

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