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.”