Body, Parentage and Character in History: Notes on the Tudor Period

by Furneaux Jordan

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND QUEEN MARY.

NOTE X.

Few rulers, few persons indeed, have ever been so much alike as our two rulers Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth. No man was ever so like Henry as was the woman Elizabeth; no woman ever resembled Elizabeth so closely as did the man Henry. Both father and daughter were extreme examples of the intellectual and unimpassioned temperament. High capacity, acute perception, clear insight, correct inference were present in both. Both, too, were capricious, fault-finding, querulous and vain. Both, moreover, had their preferences and their dislikes. Both, too, felt and showed resentment when their vanity was wounded. But in neither of them, it may be truly affirmed, was there any consuming passion—any fervent love, or invincible hatred, or fierce jealousy, or overwhelming anger.

Those who preach the doctrine of an essential difference between the sexes and who, with the injustice which so frequently accompanies the abounding self-importance of masculinity, would deprive women not only of “equality of sphere” but “equality of opportunity,” may study the character of Henry and Elizabeth with great advantage. Human beings are first of all divided (I have elsewhere contended) into certain types of character and only afterwards into men and women. Many men are by nature devoted lovers and parents and friends; many women are not. Elizabeth was one of a number—a large number—of women who have, it may be, many of the qualities which tell in practical and public life, and but little of the emotion which wells up in true wifehood and motherhood and friendship.

Henry and Elizabeth stand far above the average level of rulers. In sagacity, in tact and in statesmanship only two of their successors can compare with them. But the methods of Oliver Cromwell and William III. were very different from the Tudor methods. Cromwell and William strove to be guided by what they sincerely held to be lofty principles. Henry and Elizabeth were guided merely, though wisely guided, by the fineness of their instincts. Fine instincts were perhaps better fitted for the earlier time, and lofty principles for the later. It is easier, alas, to bungle in formulating and in applying principles than in trusting to adroitness and intuitions.

All the elements of character which Henry possessed were found also in Elizabeth, and many of these elements, though not all, they possessed in equal degree. They were alike in capacity, courage, sincerity, versatility, industry; alike in their conservative proclivities and also in their love of pageantry—for Elizabeth, like Henry, revelled in public business and in public pleasures; she delighted in progresses, shows, masks and plays. They were alike, too, in their sense of duty, in their desire for the welfare of the people, and also in their thirst for the people’s good opinion. But Elizabeth, although she had immense self-importance (she heartily approved of the queen and, heartily indeed, of nothing else), was perhaps less self-confident than her father. She was not quite comfortable in her headship of the Church—but then she had not been educated for the Church as her father had been, and she did not possess her father’s devotional nature. Her conduct was however more decorous than her father’s, notwithstanding that she was distinctly less religious than he—less religious in principle, in inward conviction and in outward worship. If she was less devout than Henry she had however a larger share of fitfulness than even he. The historian who more vividly than any other has placed the Tudor time before us speaks of Elizabeth’s “ingrained insincerity;” the words “ingrained fitfulness” would perhaps be more correct, for she was in truth as sincere as her fitfulness permitted her to be. Although it is true she was not without—no one at that time was quite without—insincerity and intrigue and duplicity and falsehood in her diplomatic methods, she was fairly sincere in her views and aims and conduct. But unfortunately her views and aims and conduct were constantly changing. She was sincere too easily and too frequently. She had a dozen fits of sincerity in a dozen hours. Whenever she sent a message, no matter how carefully the message had been considered, a second was sent to recall or change it, and very shortly a third messenger would be despatched in pursuit of the second. Urgent and critical circumstance alone, and frequently not even this, forced upon her any conclusive action. I am compelled to agree with those who believe that the most distressing incident of her life was the final decision touching Mary Stuart’s death: it was distressing on several grounds—she was not naturally cruel, or, like her father, cruel to those only who stood in her path; she did not like to kill a queen; and, above all, she hated to do anything which (like marriage, to wit) could not be undone. Elizabeth was compelled by temperament to be always doing something, but by temperament also she was always reluctant to get anything done. In her two bushels of occupation there were not two grains of performance.

Her extreme fitfulness had at least one fortunate result—it saved many lives. Henry’s frequent change of view and of policy was unquestionable, but the change was slow enough to give to the ever-watchful enemies of a fallen minister time enough to tear the fallen minister to pieces. But if a minister of Elizabeth’s fell, his head was in little danger: if he fell from favour to-day, he was restored to-morrow. He might trip twenty times, and as many times his rivals would be on the alert; but twenty pardons would be granted all in good time.

Touching the question of marriage the queen was far wiser than her father. Neither father nor daughter had the needful qualities which go to make marriage happy, and both had certain other qualities which in many cases make it an intolerable burden. Henry, unlike Elizabeth, did not discover this, for his perceptive powers generally were less acute than hers. She probably knew that in her inmost heart (her brain was sufficiently acute to gain a glimpse of what was in her heart and what was not) she was a stranger to the deep and sustained affections without which marriage is so often a cruel deception. She had admirers and favourites it is true; and, after the fashion of the time, was unseemly enough in her fits of romping and her fits of pettishness. But there has not yet been anywhere, or at any time, under the sun a healthful temperament which has objected to admiration and entertainment, and probably there never will be.

Elizabeth’s attitude to the religious condition of her people marks a decided movement, if not an onward movement: for we must never forget that a multitude of high-minded and capable souls believe that the several steps of the Reformation were downward steps. But what were the steps, and what especially was Elizabeth’s step? The popes (and their times) had said, in effect, you need not read and you must not think or inquire; your duty is to obey and believe. Henry (and his time) said, you may think and you may read, especially if your reading enables you to understand the King, but you must believe what the King believes and worship as the King worships. Elizabeth (and her times), still more at the mercy of rising Teutonic waves, exclaimed, you may think and read and inquire and believe as you like—especially as you insist upon doing so—but you really must, all of you, go to church with me on Sunday mornings. Elizabeth’s church-going act, by the bye, is still unrepealed. Long after, William III. (and his time, though William was before his time) said, you may think, read, believe, and publicly worship as you will, but you must believe something and you must worship somewhere. John Milton, before William in time and long before him in largeness of view, was the one colossal figure who fought bravely and single-handed for freedom in every domain of thought and speech and conduct.