I | INTRODUCTION |
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. Called Glorianna and Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth
enjoyed enormous popularity during her life and became an even greater legend
after her death.
Elizabeth’s reign was marked by her effective
use of Parliament and the Privy Council, a small advisory body of the important
state officials, and by the development of legal institutions in the English
counties. Elizabeth firmly established Protestantism in England, encouraged
English enterprise and commerce, and defended the nation against the powerful
Spanish naval force known as the Spanish Armada. 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 (see English Literature). She was the last of
the Tudor monarchs, never marrying or producing an heir, and was succeeded by
her closest relative, James VI of Scotland.
II | BACKGROUND AND EARLY LIFE |
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. She
was later placed under the protection of Catherine Parr, Henry’s sixth wife, and
educated in the same household as her half-brother, Edward. Both were raised
Protestant. 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.
Edward VI succeeded his father in 1547 at the
age of nine. Because of her position as a member of the royal family, Elizabeth
became a pawn in the intrigues of the nobles who governed in the boy’s name. One
of them twice proposed marriage to her. When her Roman Catholic half-sister,
Mary I, inherited the crown in 1553, Elizabeth faced different dangers. She was
now sought out to lead Protestant conspiracies, despite the fact that she had
supported Mary’s accession and attended Catholic services. In 1554 Mary had
Elizabeth imprisoned in the Tower of London, briefly threatened her with
execution, and then placed her under house arrest. Elizabeth lived quietly at
her family’s country retreat north of London until she became queen upon her
sister’s death in 1558. Elizabeth’s experiences as a child and young adult
helped her develop keen political instincts that allowed her to skillfully
balance aristocratic factions and court favorites during her long reign.
III | ELIZABETHAN ECONOMY |
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, and by Elizabeth’s death
in 1603 would reach 5 million. The continued population growth placed strains on
the economy, which was made worse by serious harvest failures in every decade of
Elizabeth’s reign. Prices for food and clothing skyrocketed in what became known
as the Great Inflation. The 1590s were the worst years of the century, marked by
starvation, epidemic disease, and roving bands of vagrants looking for
work.
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. Parliament
also passed bills to ensure fair prices in times of shortage and to regulate
wages in times of unemployment. One of the queen’s most important economic
decisions was to issue a new currency that contained a standard amount of
precious metal. This raised confidence in the currency and also allowed
businesses to enter into long-term financial contracts.
During Elizabeth’s reign, England expanded
trade overseas and the merchant community grew. Private shipbuilding boomed and
navigational advances made long sea voyages safer. England’s chief commodity was
woolen cloth, traded mostly at the Dutch port of Antwerp for finished goods and
such luxuries as French wines. Cloth exports grew over the course of the reign,
but suffered from competition from finer Spanish products and from Antwerp’s
decline after its harbor silted up and became impassable by the mid-1560s. In
the 1560s financier Sir Thomas Gresham founded the Royal Exchange to help
merchants find secure markets for their goods.
At the same time, new enterprises like the
Muscovy Company were chartered to find outlets for English products. In 1600 the
government granted the English East India Company a monopoly to trade in Asia,
Africa, and America. The desire to expand overseas trade was also a motive in
the ventures of English explorers such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Such adventurers established the first English
outposts in North America.
IV | ELIZABETHAN RELIGION |
Elizabeth’s accession marked the final
change in the nation’s official religion. Her father and half-brother
established Protestantism in England, but her half-sister, Mary, attempted
forcibly to restore Catholicism. As Henry VIII’s reign had terrorized Catholics,
so Mary’s persecuted Protestants. Under Mary, prominent Protestant clergymen
were either executed or they fled abroad. The power of the pope was
reestablished in England, though even Mary could do nothing to restore the
church lands sold off during Henry’s reign.
Elizabeth inherited a highly charged
religious situation, which she handled with great skill. Although there was
never any doubt she would return England to Protestantism, Elizabeth had to
contend with opposition from both Catholics and radical Protestants. Catholic
bishops and peers controlled the House of Lords and fought Elizabeth’s first
attempts to bring back Protestantism. Protestants exiled under the reign of Mary
I returned to England, and many brought with them new and radical Protestant
ideas, especially those of John Calvin, a French religious reformer. Calvin
stressed the importance of predestination, the belief that salvation was
predetermined for some people and not for others. Calvin also wanted the clergy
to play a less important role in the state church and to concern themselves with
preaching the gospel rather than in becoming bishops.
Under Elizabeth, England again broke with
the pope, Catholic services were forbidden, priests were allowed to marry, and
relics and decorations were removed from the churches. In attempting to diffuse
the religious situation, Elizabeth tried to accommodate Catholic sensibilities
in matters she judged less essential. She used Parliament to establish the
official doctrine of the new church, which ensured that the voice of Catholic
peers would be heard. Under the Act of Supremacy, she assumed the title of
Supreme Governor of the Church, rather than the title of Supreme Head, a move to
placate critics because Supreme Governor sounded less powerful. She would not
allow retaliation against those who had assisted Mary, and she treated with some
leniency those who refused to swear an oath to her supremacy.
The English form of Protestantism was
defined in part by two measures enacted during Elizabeth’s reign—the Act of
Uniformity of 1559 and the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563. The Act of Uniformity
established a common prayer book and set the basic ceremonies of the church. The
Thirty-nine Articles established religious doctrine that governed the church
until the English Revolution in the 1640s. Both acts were compromises that
favored the views of more conservative or moderate Protestant groups.
Elizabeth viewed the church as an
inseparable part of her monarchy and would not tolerate challenges to it. Such
challenges came from both Catholics, who clung to the old faith and plotted to
remove the queen, and from Puritans, radical Protestants who wanted to abolish
all traces of Catholicism (see Puritanism).
Catholic challenges and plots persisted
through much of Elizabeth’s reign, and Elizabeth reacted to them strongly. In
1569 a group of powerful Catholic nobles in northern England rose in rebellion
but were savagely repressed. The northern earls were executed, their property
and those of their followers was confiscated, and their heirs were deprived of
their inheritance. In 1570 the pope excommunicated Elizabeth, sanctioning
Catholic efforts to dethrone her. In 1571 an international conspiracy was
uncovered to assassinate her in favor of her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.
Although Mary was beheaded in 1587 after years of being at the center of
Catholic plots against Elizabeth, such plots did not end until England defeated
the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Elizabeth’s battles against the Puritans
were less conclusive. She suspended Archbishop of Canterbury Edmund Grindal when
he would not punish Puritans who refused to kneel or make the sign of the cross.
She also imprisoned a member of Parliament in 1576 for introducing a bill to
change the prayer book, and she refused to accept the Lambeth Articles of 1595,
which contained a Calvinist, and more radical, interpretation of the doctrine of
predestination. But Elizabeth’s efforts did not stop the Puritans from
criticizing the established church, attacking bishops, and converting others to
their views. The significance of the Elizabethan religious settlement is that it
was able to hold the vast majority of the people together, despite being a
compromise few would have chosen.
V | ELIZABETHAN GOVERNMENT |
The difficulties Elizabeth experienced
governing the English state were enhanced by prejudices against women rulers.
Though she presented herself in the traditional images of the monarchy, such as
carrying the sword of state, commissioning a portrait showing her bestriding the
counties of England, and even appearing in armor, Elizabeth realized the
importance of securing the cooperation of powerful men in order to rule
effectively. She made extensive use of the Privy Council and summoned ten
parliaments during her reign. She used Parliament to raise taxes and to endorse
her policies, but also allowed its members to suggest laws regarding local
issues, something rarely permitted by prior monarchs. The House of Lords and the
House of Commons both grew in size during her reign, but they remained councils
of the queen rather than parts of an independent legislature. When she did not
like the advice Parliament offered, she ended its sessions.
Elizabeth effectively expanded royal
government by increasing the role of sheriffs in the counties and by relying
upon justices of the peace to perform the basic administrative work of local
government. Thousands of gentlemen served in this capacity, each an official, if
unpaid, member of the regime. Meeting in quarter sessions (that is, in sessions
held four times a year), justices enforced everything from the Poor Laws to
statutes against theft.
At the center of her government, Elizabeth was
fortunate in having a succession of capable ministers, including Sir Nicholas
Bacon, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, who was her
personal favorite. She favored Leicester so extensively their relationship
became the subject of rumors. But the ablest of all Elizabethan ministers was
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, who held the offices of secretary and
treasurer. Burghley served the queen loyally for 40 years and more than anyone
else guided Elizabeth’s policies.
Burghley’s lifelong concern was for the queen
to provide an heir for succession. Having refused suitors pressed upon her when
a princess, as a queen, Elizabeth was never able to make a decision to marry and
she had no desire to share power with a husband. She rejected her sister Mary’s
husband, Philip II, king of Spain, who wished to remain allied with English
naval power, as well as nearly every eligible European royal bachelor, including
a future king of France. At first Burghley feared Elizabeth would marry his
rival, the earl of Leicester, whose wife had died under mysterious
circumstances. Then he feared Elizabeth might suddenly die, throwing the kingdom
into chaos, a fear magnified by her bout with smallpox in 1562.
The failure to settle the succession
encouraged aristocratic factions to grow around the queen. Until her execution,
Mary, Queen of Scots, was a focus of intrigue. In her prime, Elizabeth was adept
at balancing competing claimants for her favor, keeping them loyal and
dependent. But toward the end of her reign, the contest between Burghley and
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, led to an open rebellion against her. Essex’s
attempt to overthrow Elizabeth in 1601 was successfully put down, but it
demonstrated that the queen’s power had weakened.
VI | FOREIGN POLICY |
The failure to secure her succession was also
a factor in the international struggles for power in which England engaged.
Because she would not marry a Catholic prince, she was drawn into the conflicts
of European Protestants. Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 at the end of a
disastrous war that her sister Mary fought against France. One of Elizabeth’s
first acts was to conclude a treaty that gave up English control over the French
port of Calais, a blow to England’s prestige. Despite this truce, trouble with
France continued over developments in Scotland. Mary, Queen of Scots, a
Catholic, was married briefly to the king of France, and after his death in 1560
returned to rule Scotland. But Scotland was undergoing its own Protestant
Reformation that was supported by Elizabeth and, with France’s assistance,
opposed by Mary. In 1568 Mary lost her Scottish crown and was exiled to England,
where she continued to conspire against Elizabeth.
A similar struggle took place on French soil
in 1562 and 1563, as French Protestants, supported by Elizabeth, fought for
religious freedom from their Catholic monarch. English military expeditions to
Scotland and France proved expensive and ineffective. Troops were badly trained,
poorly equipped, and none too eager for battle. Most importantly, Elizabeth
never gave her wholehearted support to the French Protestants, whom she regarded
as rebels against their monarch.
The most significant English international
expeditions were in support of the Dutch Protestants. In 1581 the Dutch, then
part of the Spanish Empire, proclaimed their independence, which was contested
by Philip II of Spain, a Catholic. Spain was the most powerful nation in Europe,
and the Dutch could not hope to survive as an independent nation without outside
help. The earl of Leicester persuaded a reluctant Elizabeth to support the Dutch
Protestants, and in 1585 he was given command of an army that fought with the
Dutch. The campaign was a disaster—not only did it fail to prevent the loss of
the crucial port of Antwerp, but it also roused the anger of Philip II against
England.
Philip feared that English assistance would
hinder his efforts to reconquer the Dutch, especially since English ships could
easily send vital supplies. In 1587 Philip began organizing an immense naval
fleet, the Spanish Armada, for a direct attack upon England. His objectives were
to destroy the English navy, force Elizabeth out of the war in the Netherlands,
and gain concessions for English Catholics. The Spanish Armada, one of the most
powerful fighting forces ever known, was no match for the “Protestant wind” that
blew many of the Spanish ships off course in August 1588, or for the smaller,
swifter English vessels that were able to fire cannonballs more quickly than the
Spanish galleons. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was the high point of the
queen’s reign and united the nation. But it did not end the war with Spain,
which continued for the remaining 15 years of Elizabeth’s life. She died on
March 23, 1603, and was succeeded by her closest relative, James VI of Scotland,
who became James I of England.
VII | ASSESSMENT |
When Elizabeth died, one of the great epochs
of English history ended. Her 45-year rule decisively shaped the future of
England as a stable monarchy governed through the cooperation of crown and local
elites. The roles played by Parliament and the justices of the peace, two of the
most characteristic of all English institutions, solidified during her reign and
were indispensable thereafter. The Protestant religion was firmly established as
England’s faith, and though religious conflict was to be a serious problem for
another century, it was within the context of the Elizabethan church settlement
that the battles were fought. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was a cause for
national celebration, and “Glorious ’88” was spoken of generations later when
Elizabeth’s birthday was still celebrated as a national holiday. The defeat of
Spain established the glory of the English navy and inspired merchants and
explorers toward colonization of a wider world.
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