Being Elizabeth: Tips from One of England's Most Fabulous Monarchs
When Henry VIII shuffled off this mortal coil in 1547, a period of dangerous instability rocked England. Henry’s 9-year-old successor, Edward, reigned for just 6 years before passing away from an illness. Henry’s eldest daughter, Mary, reigned for 5 years before dying as well. After all of Henry’s baby mama succession drama, he had two children take their shot at ruling England, but 11 years after his death, his (very large) seat was vacant, still needing to be filled. Enter Elizabeth I, the once-illegitimate daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn. At the ripe young age of 25, she would take the throne and stay there for a staggering 45 years, ushering in a period now referred to as England’s Golden, or Elizabethan, Age. You know when you have a whole historical period named in your honor you must be doing something right. She lorded over the era of Shakespeare, increased colonization and exploration, and England’s Renaissance, but it was also an era of inflation, Catholic rebellion, and war with Spain.
Queen Elizabeth I reigned over it all, guiding the country with a regal and unwavering hand, reigning as one of England’s most beloved monarchs. Her enemies feared her, and her subjects generally adored her, lavishing praise on their Virgin Queen, Good Queen Bess, Gloriana…the most powerful woman of her time, in an age when women were still considered property, owning the halls of Westminster. Take a knee, boys: Welcome to the Age of Elizabeth.
This queen regnant’s life is long and full, and could easily be its own season. So instead of covering the whole of her life and rule, we are going to get her six top tips for queenship: the secrets that made her one of England’s most infamous and long-lasting rulers. Grab your favorite scepter and strap on your most elaborate ruff. Let’s go traveling.
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my sources
Academic Journals & Books
Cristy Beemer, “The Female Monarchy: A Rhetorical Strategy of Early Modern Rule,” Rhetoric Review 30, no. 3 (2011): pg. 258-174. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23064026
Regina Schulte, “Introduction: Conceptual Approaches to the Queen’s Body,” in The Body of the Queen: Gender and Rule in the Courtly World, 1500-2000, ed. Regina Schulte, Pernille Arenfeldt, Marin Kohlrausch, Xenia von Tippelskirch, New York: Berghahn Books, 2006, pg. 1-16.
Louis A. Montrose, “Idols of the Queen: Policy, Gender, and the Picturing of Elizabeth I,” Representations no. 68 (Autumn 1999): pg. 108-161. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2902957
John N. King, “Queen Elizabeth I: Representations of the Virgin Queen,” Renaissance Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 1990): pg. 30-74. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2861792
Emilia Olechnowicz, “The Queen’s Two Faces: The Portraiture of Elizabeth I of England,” in Premodern Rulership and Contemporary Political Power: The King's Body Never Dies, ed. Karolina Mroziewicz and Aleksander Sroczyñski, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 217-246.
Catherine L. Howey, “Dressing a Virgin Queen: Court Women, Dress, and Fashioning the Image of England's Queen Elizabeth I,” Early Modern Women 4, (Fall 2009): pg. 201-208. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23541582
Carole Levin, The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
Janet M. Green, “‘I My Self’: Queen Elizabeth I’s Oration at Tilbury Camp,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 28, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 421-445. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2543451
Janel Mueller, “Virtue and Virtuality: Gender in the Self-Representations of Queen Elizabeth I,” University of Chicago, 2001, pg. 1-20. https://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777122145/2848_virtuevirtuality.pdf
Online Sources
Kate Wilkinson, “Young, Female and Powerful: Was Elizabeth I a Feminist?” Royal Museums Greenwich, November 16, 2017, accessed April 23, 2022. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/young-female-powerful-was-elizabeth-i-feminist
“Elizabeth I,” Tudor Times, May 6, 2017, accessed April 23, 2022. https://tudortimes.co.uk/people/elizabeth-i
John S. Morrill, “Elizabeth I,” Encyclopedia Britannica, March 20, 2022, accessed April 23, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-I#ref59197
Scott Newport, “The Love Life of Queen Elizabeth I,” Historic UK, accessed April 23, 2022. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Love-Life-of-the-Virgin-Queen/
Kaiya Rai, “ Women in Tudor England- And Elizabeth I as the First British Feminist Icon?” History Is Now Magazine, June 10, 2018, accessed April 23, 2022. http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2018/6/10/women-in-tudor-england-and-elizabeth-i-as-the-first-british-feminist-icon#.YmSnfNrMJhk=
“Queen Elizabeth I’s Speech to the Troops at Tilbury,” Royal Museums Greenwich, accessed April 23, 2022. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/queen-elizabeth-speech-troops-tilbury#:~:text=Elizabeth%20I's%20Tilbury%20speech%20in,Let%20tyrants%20fear.
“Elizabeth I: Marriage and Succession,” Royal Museums Greenwich,” accessed April 23, 2022. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/elizabeth-i-marriage-succession#:~:text=Early%20on%20in%20her%20reign,for%20one%20reason%20or%20another.
episode transcript
keep in mind that this was written for audio, so there will probably be typos. I’m only human.
Elizabeth: Rule 1… Do NOT put a ring on it.
From her first day as queen, Elizabeth faced an uphill battle for legitimacy because she was (gasp!) an unmarried woman. Most people didn’t think a woman could handle being queen all on her lonesome, which makes sense given all we’ve learned about the Tudor’s understanding about men and women’s roles. A woman’s natural state was that of submission and obedience, so how could she ever be expected to rule over an entire country? Many people viewed it as unnatural, monstrous, and just plain wrong, including a guy you definitely don’t want to get stuck sitting next to at a dinner party: John Knox, the proud author of the “First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” He described female rule as blasphemous, writing, “So both by God's law and the interpretation of the Holy Ghost, women are utterly forbidden to occupy the place of God in the offices 'foresaid, which he has assigned to man.” He went on to argue that the weaknesses of women left them incapable of wielding authority, "To promote a Woman to beare rule, superioritie, dominion, or empire above any Realme, nation, or Citie, is repugnant to Nature ... it is the subversion of good order, of all equitie and justice."
Elizabeth wasn’t the first woman to blaze this trail in England. When her half-sister Mary reigned before her, Parliament passed an act to reassure the country that a queen had the same power and authority as a king. The act made it clear that a woman could rule in her own right and that, “the regality and dignity of the king or of the Crown, the same [was] the Queen.” Some men defended her ability to rule, although their arguments in her favor left something to be desired. John Aylmer, a well known bishop and scholar, supported Elizabeth by saying that while he accepted Knox’s view that women were less competent, this didn’t necessarily mean that they were incompetent. (Thanks, man!) A far more persuasive argument was put forth by poet Edward Dyer, who wrote that Elizabeth must be competent, because she had been chosen by God to rule, “when God chooseth himself by sending to a king, whose succession is ruled by inheritance and lineal descent, no heirs male: it is a plain argument that for some secret purpose he mindeth the female should reign and govern.” Indeed, Elizabeth herself would often make use of Dyer’s argument in the years to come, and whenever a man decided to complain about her choice to rule while remaining single, she’d simply remind them that she had been handpicked by the most important man of them all: almighty God.
But Elizabeth still had to deal with constant attempts to get her married. The English people were desperate to find a husband for their single queen. Given what we’ve learned about the Tudor person’s fear of single ladies, this is unsurprising, but their anxiety about Elizabeth’s relationship status was driven by a lot of different factors. Let’s discuss the top-tier three. First, because royal marriages were a good way to forge political alliances. Foreign husbands might not be good for much, but they could be good for shoring up England’s national security. Kings married for military support, too, you know.
And then there was the issue of succession: something Elizabeth’s father spent much of his reign avidly obsessing over. Elizabeth was responsible for providing an heir and continuing the Tudor line of succession, preferably with a son. Elizabeth’s people were tolerating a woman on the throne for now, but they were clearly hoping it wouldn’t last forever. So were the many men around her. The government found it degrading to have to serve a woman. Our favorite royal pain in the rear end, John Knox, summed up the issue in this way: “woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man.” They were meant to be submissive and obedient, and the queen upset that natural order. Besides, how could Lizzie’s feeble brain and wandering uterus possibly be expected to handle commanding a military all on her own? They thought that nobody would fear her, and that England would become a laughing stock. But things would be better if she were to get married and have a son. Her chief advisor, William Cecil seems to have lost a great deal of sleep trying to convince his queen to get hitched, “I am most sorry of all that her Majesty is not disposed seriously to marriage; for I see likelihood of grat evil . . . if she shall not shortly marry.” In 1559, the House of Commons went so far as to petition Elizabeth, begging her to marry. The petition read, “nothing can be more repugnant to the common good, than to see a Princesse, who by marriage may preserve the Common-wealth in peace, to leade a single life, like a Vestal Nunne.” Gents, I’m not sure if you’ve listened to The Exploress podcast, but ancient Rome’s Vestal Virgins were some of the most powerful people up in that place, so I’m not sure you’re making your point.
Despite the constant pressure, Elizabeth refused to marry. She said from a very young age, even before becoming monarch, that she had no interest in hitching her wagon to a man. “If I could appoint such a successor to the Crown as would please me and the country, I would not marry, as it is a thing for which I have never had any inclination.” She told one ambassador, “I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.” When speaking to the French ambassador, she said, "When I think of marriage, it is as though my heart were being dragged out of my vitals."
Life for most single women in Tudor England was hard. Society distrusted a single lady. In many ways, it would have been easier to marry. So why did Elizabeth dig her heels in? Her subjects certainly had a few ideas. Naturally, they speculated about her having a physical deformity or health problems that prevented her from wanting to marry and have children. Cardinal William suspected it was because Elizabeth was super horny and could not, “Confine herself to one man.” Mmk, William.
It’s hard to pin down her exact feelings on the subject because she was so good at hiding them to suit her own agenda. But we can assume her tumultuous upbringing and her mom’s fate didn’t warm her to the prospect. She did not grow up with healthy examples of the matrimonial state, and she probably found the idea psychologically traumatizing. Her father beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth was around 7 when he cast off Anne of Cleves. She then watched him execute his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Her stepmother, Katherine Parr, died from childbirth complications shortly after marrying Thomas Seymour…a man who began sexually assaulting Elizabeth when he moved in with them. Robert Dudley would recall that at just eight years old, Elizabeth would tell him that she’d never marry. Given her childhood, it isn’t hard to see why.
Another, simpler explanation is simply that she couldn’t marry the man she truly loved, her long time favorite, Robert Dudley. Robert and Lizzie were childhood friends, and when Elizabeth became queen, she made him Master of the Horse and Privy Councillor. Although Elizabeth called Robert her “Bonny Sweet Robin,” and told an ambassador, “I cannot do without my Lord Robert,” Robert was deeply unpopular, the son of an executed traitor, and his first wife had died under mysterious circumstances, found dead at the bottom of a staircase. (Some people thought Robert murdered her to clear the way to marry his queen.)Robert was eventually exonerated, but Elizabeth knew she could never marry him without causing an enormous scandal. Nonetheless, the two remained close, and he tried for years to convince Elizabeth to marry him. But Elizabeth was well aware of what people thought of her relationship with Robert, and on her deathbed she admitted that, “though she loved him dearly…nothing unseemly had ever passed between them.”
It’s a nice, romantic notion, but it probably wasn’t the driving force behind her staying single. The most compelling reason Lizzie didn’t want to marry is simply that she wanted to rule on her own. In Elizabeth’s eyes, Parliament’s attempt to force her into wife and motherhood was a threat to her very sovereignty. She did not want to share power or be controlled by a husband. One episode with Robert Dudley is particularly telling. When he tried to discipline one of her servants, Elizabeth angrily shot back, “If you think to rule here, I will take a course to see you forth-coming: I will have here but one Mistress, and no Master.”
Elizabeth viewed herself as exceptional. She had the education, ambition, and intelligence to rule the country by herself. She relished the freedom, power, and control the office of monarch afforded her, and thus refused to give it up, even though producing heirs was considered the most basic function of queenship. Even the constant Catholic death threats and assassination plots could not convince Elizabeth to give up her independence. Catherine de Medici remarked to one of Elizabeth’s councillors, "Jesu! doth not your Mistress see that she shall be alwaes in danger untill she marry?" One could argue that she would be in danger if she did. Look at her sister Mary, who ended up marrying Philip II . She thought he would make a great political match, but most of her cabinet opposed it. He was too Catholic, they said: adding this religious feeling to Mary’s, also Catholic, would be seen as a threat to the Protestant population. Thus there was fear - and rebellion! - against the marriage, and that caused a lot of drama for Mary. Elizabeth watched the strain that fighting for Philip with her counselors put on her, as well as the upset of several phantom pregnancies. No thank you!
She actually ruled jointly with her husband, even though he wasn’t technically a Tudor. While Henry’s wives were expected not to presume a role in the running of the country, a husband in this era might. One of the bedrocks of a Tudor marriage, as we know, is that a wife is expected to obey a husband. Without doubt, that might have undermined some of her authority. As the diplomat from Scotland, Sir James Melville, surmised[1] : “I know the truth of that Madam, you need not tell it me. Your Majesty thinks if you were married you would be but Queen of England; and now you are both King and Queen.”
She also feared that producing, or even naming, an heir would undermine her power, and perhaps inspire her enemies to try and get rid of her. As she told the House of Commons as early as 1559: “Assuredly, if my successor were known to the world, I would never esteem my state to be safe.” Elizabeth knew the only way to stay in control of her sovereignty was to keep herself single, which she sold to the people by leaning into it. Early on in her reign, she proclaimed that the reason she wouldn’t marry was because she was 'already bound unto a husband which is the Kingdom of England'. It was good PR, and a savvy power move. It meant the crown lay very firmly with her.
Elizabeth: Rule number 2…Keep your suitors on the hook.
All monarchs were pressured into marriage negotiations for the sake of heirs and foreign alliances, and Elizabeth had a number of suitors vying for her hand. Despite declaring in her first speech before Parliament that her tombstone would read that she had “lived and dyed a virgin," Elizabeth wasn’t always the “Virgin Queen” we now view her as. Her cult of virginity was only developed decades after she took the throne, once she became too old to bear children. In her earlier years, Lizzie fashioned herself as an eligible bachelorette willing to marry a foreign husband, No one was seriously considering that their young, pretty queen would remain permanently single. She was quite a catch, after all!
Because everyone assumed she would marry, Elizabeth’s portraits were dutifully sent to potential suitors, and though we know Elizabeth wasn’t personally very inclined toward wedlock, she actually encouraged marriage negotiations. Why? Well, Lizzie loved being courted. There is a kind of power in having suitors on the hook, always waiting. The Spanish ambassador, De Silva, remarked, “I do not think anything is more enjoyable to this Queen than the treating of marriage, although she assures me herself that nothing annoys her more. She is vain, and would like all the world to be running after her.”
So who were all these men running after Elizabeth? First up was Phillip of Spain: yes, that Phillip of Spain, Mary’s husband, who did not mourn for long before chasing after her half sister. Other candidates followed, including the younger sons of France, the sons of the Holy Roman Emperor, and Prince Eric of Sweden, who wrote Elizabeth love letters and challenged people to duels on her behalf. He later went insane and executed so many people that his subjects eventually poisoned him. (Way to dodge a bullet there, Elizabeth.) But not just out of personal feeling. Elizabeth was a master at playing the long game. It was good politics to tentatively agree to a marriage before eventually changing her mind, when it suited her: it helped her avoid offending her allies. Take one of her more serious suitors, Charles II, the Archduke of Austria. Elizabeth was seriously considering accepting his hand, it’s said, but there were two big obstacles that prevented her from saying yes. First, Charles was Catholic, and Lizzie would only marry somebody who practiced the same religion as she did, and secondly, "the Queen says that she has taken a vow to marry no man whom she has not seen. . . . And said she would rather be a nun than marry without knowing with whom and on the faith of portrait painters." Elizabeth had apparently learned from her father’s mistakes and flat out refused to sign the marriage contract without first meeting Charles in person. Charles felt that he would lose his dignity were he to come to England before a formal betrothal, and eventually, the negotiations fell through.
The final contender for Elizabeth’s hand arrived late to the game. Elizabeth was in her forties, and was once again under immense pressure to marry and have a child, both due to her age, and a series of dangerous assassination plots against her. The man in question? Francis, Duke of Anjou, the brother of the King of France. The idea of a French alliance was attractive, to shore up England’s defenses against a hostile Spain, but Francis also had personal merits. Elizabeth was 46 years old, and Francis was 24, and he alone out of all Elizabeth’s suitors made the trip to England to meet her in person. Lizzie was delighted with Francis, but nobody else was. Robert Dudley was so jealous that he accused Francis of using “amorous potions and unlawful arts” to seduce Elizabeth. Some members of Parliament didn’t take to Francis due to his Catholicism, while others didn’t like him due to his Frenchness. Certainly neither of them helped.
Then, John Stubbs wrote a pamphlet warning that because men always dominated women in marriage, if she married, “our dear Queen Elizabeth (I shake to speak it) [would be] led blindfold as a poor lamb to the slaughter.” He also helpfully pointed out that at her age, Elizabeth was more likely to die in childbirth than produce a healthy heir. At this point, John had printed one too many pamphlets for Elizabeth’s liking, so she put him on trial, and he ended up losing his right hand over it. (Eventually, Parliament took a vote, Francis was shot down, and marriage negotiations ceased. Elizabeth was upset and publicly wept, but it was said "in her own chamber she danced for very joy at getting rid of him."
It was at this point, around the 1580’s, that many people began begging Elizabeth NOT to marry. They, too, had realized that Elizabeth’s age meant childbirth would be dangerous, and Elizabeth was doing a pretty good job ruling England independently. A foreign Catholic husband might ruin everything! Suddenly, a virgin queen didn’t seem so bad after all.
Elizabeth seized her chance and embraced the ideal of womanly chastity. She rebranded herself as the Virgin Queen, mother of her people. Whereas she used to flaunt her virginity as a way to seem like an eligible bride, she now used it to remain single, independent, and powerful. What was once a weakness was now celebrated as a strength. By leaning into this idea that virginity was the only acceptable alternative to marriage, Elizabeth exploited patriarchal societal views to get what she wanted.
Elizabeth’s chastity also proved that she was morally worthy of holding the crown, and her pure reputation extended to her political motivations. Her governing acts were as pure as her body. Similarly, she took on the void left by the suppressed the Virgin Mary, and wrapped herself in the forgotten symbolism of the discarded Catholic idol.
Elizabeth: Rule number three: Dress for the job you want.
All Tudors knew the vital importance of public image when it came to holding onto the crown. Henry VIII was incredibly good at using fashion to underscore his divine right to his kingship. But if Elizabeth ever went up against him in a sartorial tennis tourney, it would be game, set, match. Bye, Henry! Elizabeth truly mastered the art of self-representation and presentation. Using fashion, portraiture, spectacle, and public events, she was able to legitimize her rule and shape a very specific image: that of beloved mother of England, ageless goddess, and, of course, Virgin Queen.
As we talked about in our episode on Anne Boleyn and Fashion, Elizabeth often used clothing as a way to express herself. Makeup, jewelry and dresses were all tools through which she was able to cultivate a larger than life persona. She kept her red hair down to symbolize her unmarried status, wore plenty of black, white, and pearls to symbolize her virginity, and chose intricately embroidered clothing with enormous ruffs to demonstrate her grandeur and wealth. She wore daring doublets and other masculine styles that made her look equal to any king. Her elaborate dress was meant to remind people that she was no mere mortal: she was a deity in human form. The fact that her huge drum farthingale and stiff ruffs forced people to love out of her way or risk getting trampled can’t have hurt the force of her presence.
Playing goddess did have a downside, though. Beauty was considered a blessing from God, so as God’s chosen ruler, Elizabeth always had to appear beautiful- it was a sign that she had the right to rule. Thus, as she got older, she became obsessed with using makeup to cover her wrinkles and smallpox scars, and she often used over-the-top clothing and jewelry to distract people from her decaying teeth, which came courtesy of her deep love of sugar.
If a king or queen appeared weak or old in their portraits, it would reflect poorly on the entire country, and so Elizabeth took her portraits incredibly seriously. In fact, she issued proclamations concerning the production of her image, essentially making it illegal to visually represent her in any way that made her look ugly, and her government set about burning images that she didn’t approve of. Elizabeth also went on the offensive, commissioning elaborate portraits of herself styled as she chose. Portraits were an excellent method of propaganda, and in an era without photography or video, it was critical that Elizabeth always be recognizable. She wanted her subjects to feel as though they knew her, which is why Elizabeth always looks the same in her portraits, regardless of if they were painted when she was 30 or 50. She never shows any signs of aging, which was purposeful. Consistency, she knew, was comforting. That’s why Elizabeth’s motto was “always the same.” She knew that appearing ageless would reassure her subjects, who were getting increasingly worried about the fact that she had no children and hadn’t named an heir. She actively tried to promote the idea that she would never die, and that her advanced age wasn’t affecting her ability to rule. She recognized that as queen, the physical embodiment of England, her body could not appear to be changing or aging. Thus, her portraits all have a sense that she is a fierce immortal being that, like England, could never wither.
Rule number four: When people talk badly about you, you could ignore them. But personally, I would rather pass legislation that makes slandering the queen illegal and build one of the best spy rings in the world.
Despite being an excellent monarch, Lizzie couldn’t overcome her gender or her lack of an heir, and the English people dealt with their many anxieties about her odd life choices by talking smack about her. Elizabeth was well aware of what people were saying. and in 1564 she told the Spanish ambassador, Guzman de Silva, “They charge me with a good many things in my own country and elsewhere… My life is in the open, and I have so many witnesses that I cannot understand how so bad a judgement can have been formed of me.”
Elizabeth also knew how important reputation was for a woman of her era, and as a woman in power, she was a veritable lightning rod for slander. She was the most powerful person in England, and yet she couldn’t stop people from talking about her sex life. She was often called a whore, and accused of being unfit to rule because of her “loose morals.” A little rich, given her dad’s behavior with his - wait, let me count - six wives, most of whom he started sleeping with before he divorced his previous one. Ah, sweet double standard, alive and always well. Nonetheless, Catholic Cardinal William Allen told anyone who would listen that Elizabeth, “shamfully… defiled her person and cuntry, and made her court as a trappe, by this damnable and detestable art to intangle in sinne,” and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the English ambassador, wrote from Paris that the French gossip about Elizabeth's sexuality made him wish he were dead, “One laugheth at us, another threateneth, another revileth the Queen.”This pattern of reducing Elizabeth to her sexuality was less about her actual behavior, though, and more about attacking her politics. There is no better way in the Tudor period to undermine a woman’s authority than to call her chastity into question.
At least Elizabeth could actually do something about it. In 1559, she made it treasonous to “maliciously, advisedly, and directly say ... that the Queen's Majesty that now is, during her life, is not or ought not to be Queen of this realm.” One woman was actually jailed for spreading the rumor that Elizabeth had gotten pregnant by her favorite, Robert Dudley.
But it wasn’t just verbal attacks Elizabeth had to worry about: many of the threats made against her were very physical indeed. There are many attacks on Elizabeth’s life over the years, especially from her Catholic haters. There were many Catholics, both within her country and in the many Catholic nations around her, who didn’t think she had a right to the royal seat she was posing on. And so there were MANY attempts on her life, some half baked, others quite elaborate. And so Elizabeth did what any smart queen would: she builds one of the world’s most infamous secret service, and the UK’s first official spy network. Her “Watchers,” led and ruthlessly organized by Francis Walsingham, cracked codes, intercepted letters, cracked codes, and sniffed out dissenters, all while keeping a low and secret profile. Elizabeth was close with several of the men who helped keep her safe. John Dee, alchemist, magician, and astrologer to the queen, also did a lot of spying for her with the Spanish. He signed his letters to the queen with the insignia “007”—yes, the original 007 that later inspired suave spy James Bond.
Of course, her spies couldn’t keep every threat from slipping through to her, so Elizabeth learned to be on her guard. Royals of Elizabeth’s time were, as a rule, pretty paranoid about being poisoned. Henry VIII had food and wine tasters, there to sample things before he did just in case there was poison in it. He also had napkin fondlers and tablecloth kissers. Elizabeth’s councilors were very wary of Elizabeth receiving gifts of anything that might touch her body. In 1560, her secretary of state William Cecil got so concerned about a Catholic plot that he not only had her food tested, but also her clothes. The royal underwear and “all manner of things that shall touch any part of her majesty’s body bare” had to be both guarded and tested. She had reason to be nervous. In 1587, a French ambassador plots to have one of her gowns poisoned. In 1597, another guy smeared a poisonous substance on her horse’s saddle, but she was wearing so many layers that it didn't take.
It’s no surprise, then, that Elizabeth was very fond of her seven-foot-long unicorn horn, which was actually the horn of a narwhal, and was generally believed to detect poison. The thing was worth more than 10,000 pounds, and she would often drink from it, as it had the purported benefit of exploding if ever poison were to touch it. She also had a ring made out of a bezoar, which she waved over wine and waited to see if it boiled.
Rule number 5… choose your words wisely.
Being highly educated was one of the many qualifications most Elizabethans looked for in their monarch, and no one could accuse Elizabeth of lacking in that area. Lizzie was more educated than most of the upper-class noblemen in Europe, taught by the best private tutors, including the celebrated Cambridge humanist, Roger Ascham, who taught his young charge everything from classics to moral philosophy. She proved to be an admirable student who particularly excelled at languages. She became fluent in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian, with Ascham remarking, “Her mind has no womanly weakness, her perseverance is equal to that of a man, and her memory long keeps what it quickly picks up.”
Elizabeth’s gift for languages served her well in her diplomatic pursuits, but she also made good use of her lessons in rhetoric, utilizing them to assert her authority in an age in which women were encouraged not to speak. Because Elizabeth’s position of power put her in direct contradiction with societal gender norms, she often had to defend herself, and she relied heavily on her impressive education to do so. In the1600s, women were not supposed to speak out in public, or exist in political spaces like Parliament, and so Elizabeth had to find creative ways in which to overcome these restrictions while still asserting her authority. As it turns out, she was very, very good at it. and in 1598, Elizabeth remarked, "It was no marvel to teach a woman to talk; it were far harder to teach her to hold her tongue."
She used her speeches to fashion herself as the wife of England and the mother of her people: a clever way of using language to walk the line between fulfilling her feminine gender role while still asserting her masculine authority to rule. In her first speech to Parliament, Elizabeth claimed, “I am already bound unto a husband, which is the kingdom of England, and that may suffice you… and doe not upbraid me with miserable lacke of children: for everyone of you, and as many as are Englishmen, are children, and kinsmen to me.” If shewais already married to England, and the English people were her children…then getting married and having kids becomes a non-issue. Unfortunately, the guys did NOT shut up about it, which eventually led to Elizabeth’s infamous petticoat speech. This was a 1566 address in which she tore Parliament a new one after they accused her of not caring about England because she’d just refused to marry Archduke Charles of Austria. After defending herself as a good and just ruler dedicated to her country, she reiterated that she had been perfectly open to marriage for the sake of England, “And I hope to have chylderne, otherwyse I wolde never marrie.” Thus she insults a room full of men by reminding them that technically she doesn’t need a man for anything except reproduction. (Would you guys like some ice for that burn?) She then reminds them who actually has all of the power here, “I am your anointed queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything,” before taking off her crown, and saying, “I thank God I am indeed endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place of Christendom.” By drawing Parliament’s attention to her petticoat, Lizzie is highlighting the audacity of the men to question their queen on such an intimate subject as having children. In order to emphasize how inappropriate they are acting towards her, she rhetorically undresses down to her petticoat, and uses her female body as a way to re-establish her power and authority. In William Cecil’s report to the full House of Commons written after the speech, he states that “all the House was silent.”
When she wasn’t putting Parliament firmly in their place, she was giving speeches on the battlefield. In the late 1580’s she found herself giving a rousing speech to troops at Tilbury, cementing her status as a brilliant orator with the Armada Speech. At this point, war with Spain seemed inevitable, as King Philip was hellbent on overthrowing the Protestant Elizabeth and restoring Catholic rule over England. Elizabeth was not amused by Philip’s aggressive grandstanding, and in 1587, she remarked, “that although she was a woman and her profession was to try to preserve peace with neighboring princes… if they attacked her they would find that in war she could be better than a man.” Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s silver tongue did not sway Philip, and in 1588, he sent an armada across the sea to conquer England. Elizabeth responded by visiting the Tilbury Camp to give a speech to the English troops gathered there to fight the incoming Spanish Armada. Surrounded by military men, Elizabeth said, “And therefore I am come amongst you as you see, at this time, not for my recreation, and disport, but being resolved in the midst, and heat of the battaile to live, or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my king- dom, and for my people, my Honour, and my blood even in the dust. I know I have the bodie, but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and Stomach of a King, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my Realm, to which rather then any dishonour shall grow by me, I my self will take up arms, I my self will be your General, Judge, and Rewarder of everie one of your virtues in the field.”
Elizabeth was an unmarried woman living in an age in which women’s bodies and minds were considered so weak that they weren’t allowed to do much of anything, let alone address a group of powerful men on the eve of war. Despite how out of place she must have seemed, Elizabeth’s Tilbury speech was considered a resounding success, with England’s navy defeating the Spanish Armada. This double triumph was the high water mark of Lizzie’s reign. The fact that she defeated the enemy, protected the homeland, and safeguarded Protestant values caused her popularity to skyrocket. Who says a strong and educated woman can’t control the day?
Rule number 6… Become a woman AND a man.
It was thought that all kings had two bodies: that of their natural, mortal body, and that of their supernatural, immortal body politic, which allowed him to transcend his human limitations. In this sense, kings were not just men, they were God’s vessel for ruling the country. In Elizabeth’s case, this meant she was not just a woman, but was imbued with divine authority. Lizzie seized this concept to justify her ability to rule regardless of her sex. She often argued that while her natural, mortal body was female, her body politic was male. We see this language at work in many of her speeches, including the Armada Speech, where she actually referred to herself as a king rather than queen.
Let’s take a closer look at Elizabeth’s androgenous rhetoric, because while she regularly took on leadership roles and used male language to describe herself, she still existed in a female body and presented herself as such. She took great pride in wearing elaborate clothing and makeup, and was celebrated for her virginal status and her role as wife and mother to England, but she also acted, in the public’s eyes, like a man in that she gave speeches, engaged in politics and warfare, and ruled the country. Lizzie essentially took on the roles of king AND queen, and her subjects viewed her in that way. Indeed, Elizabeth was masterful at picking and choosing when to display masculine or feminine qualities to best advantage. For example, when addressing the House of Commons, she said, “The weight and greatness of this matter might cause in me, being woman wanting both wit and memory, some fear to speak and bashfulness besides, a thing appropriate to my sex. But yet the princely seat and kingly throne wherein God (though unworthy) hath constituted me, maketh these two causes to seem little in mine eyes.” Here, Elizabeth brings up her natural feminine body only to assure her audience that it is of no great consequence, and is in fact superseded by her male body politic, which allows her to rise above her feminine limitations and deal with matters of state.
It is also notable that whenever Elizabeth’s councillors praised her, they used masculine rather than feminine descriptions: "Queen Elizabeth, being a Virgin of a manly Courage, professed that she was an absolute free Princess to manage her actions by herself or her Ministers." When Elizabeth survived a poisoning attempt decades later, her supporters reported that she, "remained undaunted, with a manly spirit." Elizabeth enjoyed these heavily gendered descriptions, and actively leaned into the idea that she was both male and female.
So Elizabeth was powerful, independent, outspoken, assertive, and was walking around calling herself the king. Does that mean that she was a feminist? Not exactly. Just because Elizabeth lived contrary to society’s norms of how women should behave doesn’t mean she believed that every woman should have the opportunities she did. Like most people of her time, she believed that most women were biologically inferior. Or course, she didn’t count herself as being like most women. She lived her life as if she was the exception to the rule, without bothering to question whether or not the rule was accurate. So, despite the fact that Elizabeth was the most powerful person in England, she didn’t use her power to help out other women. The Second Book of the Homilies, produced by Elizabeth’s bishops, encouraged women to marry and obey their husbands, stating, “the woman is a weak creature, not endued with like strength and constancy of mind.”
Elizabeth, then, was a paradox. Highly educated, a brilliant orator, excellent at sports, and spent her days talking politics and warfare. But she did not believe that all her accomplishments proved that women were just as capable as men. She believed thatshe was the only woman capable of doing all of these things because she had been chosen by God. Rather than viewing Elizabeth as a feminist who defied social norms on the grounds of women’s rights, it is probably more accurate to view Elizabeth as an individualist with a bit of an ego problem. That doesn’t mean her rule didn’t prove a larger point, though. She was an intelligent and savvy politician who didn’t need a man to rule effectively, and to this day, she is the only Queen of England who never married. As Sir Francis Bacon wrote, Elizabeth was “ever her own mistress.”