The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of England

by Mary Platt Parmele

The authority vested in her was as absolute as her father's, but while her imperious temper sacrificed individuals without mercy, she ardently desired the welfare of her Kingdom, which she ruled with extraordinary moderation and a political sagacity almost without parallel, softening, but not abandoning, one of her father's usurpations.

She was a Protestant without any enthusiasm for the religion she intended to restore in England, and prayed to the Virgin in her own private Chapel, while she was undoing the work of her Catholic sister Mary. The obsequious apologies to the Pope were withdrawn, but the Reformation she was going to espouse, was not the fiery one being fought for in Germany and France. It was mild, moderate, and like her father's, more political than religious. The point she made was that there must be religious uniformity, and conformity to the Established Church of England—with its new "Articles," which as she often said, "left opinion free."

It was in fact a softened reproduction of her terrible father's attitude. The Church, (called an "Episcopacy," on account of the jurisdiction of its Bishops,) was Protestant in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in State was conciliation and compromise. So the Church of England was to a great extent a compromise, retaining as much as the people would bear of external form and ritual, for the sake of reconciling Catholic England.

The large element to whom this was offensive was reinforced by returning refugees who brought with them the stern doctrines of Calvin; and they finally separated themselves altogether from a Church in which so much of Papacy still lingered, to establish one upon simpler and purer foundation; hence they were called "Puritans," and "Nonconformists," and were persecuted for violation of the "Act of Supremacy."

The masculine side of Elizabeth's character was fully balanced by her feminine foibles. Her vanity was inordinate. Her love of adulation and passion for display, her caprice, duplicity, and her reckless love- affairs, form a strange background for the calm, determined, masterly statesmanship under which her Kingdom expanded.

The subject of her marriage was a momentous one. There were plenty of aspirants for the honor. Her brother-in-law Philip, since the abdication of Charles V., his father, was a mighty King, ruler over Spain and the Netherlands, and was at the head of Catholic Europe. He saw in this vain, silly young Queen of England an easy prey. By marrying her he could bring England back to the fold, as he had done with her sister Mary, and the Catholic cause would be invincible.

Elizabeth was a coquette, without the personal charm supposed to belong to that dangerous part of humanity. She toyed with an offer of marriage as does a cat with a mouse. She had never intended to marry Philip, but she kept him waiting so long for her decision, and so exasperated him with her caprice, that he exclaimed at last, "That girl has ten thousand devils in her." He little thought, that beneath that surface of folly there was a nature hard as steel, and a calm, clear, cool intelligence, for which his own would be no match, and which would one day hold in check the diplomacy of the "Escurial" and outwit that of Europe. She adored the culture brought by the "new learning;" delighted in the society of Sir Philip Sidney, who reflected all that was best in England of that day; talked of poetry with Spenser; discussed philosophy with Bruno; read Greek tragedies and Latin orations in the original; could converse in French and Italian, and was besides proficient in another language,—the language of the fishwife,—which she used with startling effect with her lords and ministers when her temper was aroused, and swore like a trooper if occasion required.

But whatever else she was doing she never ceased to study the new England she was ruling. She felt, though did not understand, the expansion which was going on in the spirit of the people; but instinctively realized the necessity for changes and modifications in her Government, when the temper of the nation seemed to require it.

It was enormous common-sense and tact which converted Elizabeth into a liberal Sovereign. Her instincts were despotic. When she bowed instantly to the will of the Commons, almost apologizing for seeming to resist it, it was not because she sympathized with liberal sentiments, but because of her profound political instincts, which taught her the danger of alienating that class upon which the greatness of her Kingdom rested. She realized the truth forgotten by some of her successors, that the Sovereign and the middle class must be friends. She might resist and insult her lords and ministers, send great Earls and favorites ruthlessly to the block, but no slightest cloud must come between her and her "dear Commons" and people. This it was which made Spenser's adulation in the "Faerie Queen" but an expression of the intense loyalty of her meanest subject.

Perhaps it was because she remembered that the whole fabric of the Church rested upon Parliamentary enactment, and that she herself was Queen of England by Parliamentary sanction, that she viewed so complacently the growing power of that body in dealing more and more with matters supposed to belong exclusively to the Crown, as for instance in the struggle made by the Commons to suppress monopolies in trade, granted by royal prerogative. At the first she angrily resisted the measure. But finding the strength of the popular sentiment, she gracefully retreated, declaring, with royal scorn for truth, that "she had not before known of the existence of such an evil."