Elizabeth I: Queen Without a King (2024)

[Music] from the moment she is Born the world knows that she should have been a [Music] son though strong willed intelligent and passionate beneath the image of This Magnificent Monarch is a vulnerable woman keenly aware that her life is in constant Peril Elizabeth was the monarch but it's a man's world of course she had to marry of course she had to give England the king her role was to produce HS to continue the Dynasty in an age of assassinations and Intrigue Queen Elizabeth is surrounded by enemies scheming to steal her crown or take her life she knows she must be both king and queen to a country in turmoil [Music] [Music] knowing that life would have been easier had she been born a man the unlikely Elizabeth would become the son that Henry VII had always wanted but never expected Elizabeth is the queen who needed no King a crant moon hangs in the night sky above grenwich Palace in September 1533 King Henry VII has spent almost 20 years married to his first queen Katherine of Aragon but she has failed to provide him with what he wanted most in the world a son and Heir he has moved Heaven and Earth to ensure the analment of his marriage to his first wife so he and his new Queen Anne Belin could be married and have a child Anne enters the final stage of her pregnancy Henry is sure that the child is the Son and Heir he's been praying for the Flyers and announcements have been prepared in anticipation of the birth of a new Prince ensuring the stable succession of the Tuda Dynasty and to everyone's great relief a healthy baby is born but Henry is devastated to find out that it is another girl they call her Elizabeth Henry certainly was expecting a son we know that in fact because he prepares the birth announcements for the birth of a prince unfortunately for her parents of course she is a girl and the birth announcements are amended to add an S to say princess princess Elizabeth is proclaimed heir to the throne at least until any future sons Are Born To The King um she's the first child of Henry VII and amberin the first since the break with Rome now some historians have suggested that Henry was furious at Anne for the delivery of a daughter and indeed that this was the beginning of the end of their relationship but actually we have good evidence that hemry consoled an and suggested that the deliver of a healthy daughter was a good sign for the sons that would follow Elizabeth's birth was disappointing and he really did want to have a son but he knew that both he and Anne were young enough to have more children and an does quickly become pregnant again the following year an is pregnant by Henry again in 1536 but tragically miscarries in February of the same year Henry is injured in a a jousting accident Henry VII loved jousting and it is an incredibly dangerous sport According to some accounts the king is carried back from the tournament Fields unconscious he will never recover from his injuries he fell badly and his horse landed on top of [Music] him this really changed Henry's lifestyle it any ways emasculated him one account suggests that he was unconscious for several hours and there were also suggestions that perhaps there is some sort of brain damage I think this is a turning point in Henry's life and not for the better I think this narrowing of his uh abilities and I think this continual pain that Henry is in really changes his personality I think he becomes hotheaded and irrational and would lash out to to agree that he hadn't previously and it really hammered home to the king and to his court he still did not have a legitimate male Heir not long after Henry's jousting accident and tragically miscarries and I think this is the beginning of the end of Anne's life Henry told Anne that he could see that he would have no more boys by her which was particularly ominous the trauma of Henry's injury and Anne's miscarriage has put the couple at odds Thomas Cromwell and Anne who once had been United in the pursuit of the same cause are now Waring over the king's favor in the ensuing weeks Cromwell makes a move against her and poisons Henry against his own [Music] wife the end for Anne came very quickly Queen Anne Belin is arrested charged with adultery incest and treason and is sentenced to death very dramatically on the 2nd of May 1536 Anne is arrested at the palace of Greenwich and is taken to to the Tower of London she has no idea why she has been arrested but two people do her husband Henry VII and his Minister Thomas Cromwell Henry hires a French swordsman as one last Act of Mercy for his formerly beloved [Music] wife Anne is executed on the 19th of May [Music] 1536 following her mother's execution Elizabeth's Life Changes drastically barely 3 years old the princess is now considered illegitimate Elizabeth's mother Anne is executed when she's 2 years old and it is an enormous change for Elizabeth she is no longer to be called the princess Elizabeth but rather Lady Elizabeth and although she is is not yet 3 years old Elizabeth is keenly aware of these changes she actually says to her Governor you know why was why yesterday were you calling me Lady Princess and now you're calling me Lady Elizabeth because she notices a drop in status her mother's execution must have been the most traumatic event of her childhood and possibly her entire life she may well not have remembered her mother but certainly she knew of the circumstances Henry does not have time to greet van for the day after her execution he proposes to a new bride 2 weeks later he marries Jane Seymour the couple has a son Edward and he and Elizabeth only four years apart in age spend much of their childhood together at Hatfield house Elizabeth was a highly intelligent young woman she was gifted in education indeed she spoke eight different languages Elizabeth was incredibly intelligent and she spent most of her days as a teenager in young woman at her desk I mean it was actually later remarked of her that she would read Greek for fun um because that was seen as quite strange the precocious Elizabeth even at an early age excels in her studies of language and law under the tuition of Roger asham she learned theology history and moral philosophy of her he wrote 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 also learned I think a great deal through her childhood and Adolescence about the politics at court she learned how to bend she learned how to stand her ground too really was a gifted [Music] individual so Elizabeth's relationship with her siblings varied particularly with Mary so with Edward she always had a strong relationship he's only four years younger than her and they were raised together until he was six and left the Royal Nursery they were also both raised as Protestants so they had this Affinity with religion so throughout their childhood and Edward's Reign we can see that he's close he calls Elizabeth his sweet sister Temperance she's clearly his favorite sister with Mary the relationship is a lot more complex Mary is much much older than Elizabeth um she's 17 years old when Elizabeth is born and Elizabeth is very much born at a traumatic period in Mary's life Mary has been declared illegitimate she's been separated from her beloved mother and her parents marriage has been and old when Elizabeth is born she becomes heir to the throne instead of Mary and Mary is then told that she has to join Elizabeth's household as effectively a servant um she has to take her meals in the dining hall rather than in private which her princess would expect and she's very much second to Elizabeth so the relationship is quite tricky when King Henry VII died in 1547 Elizabeth was only 13 years old The Prince and Elizabeth's half brother Edward came to the throne upon the death of their father the boy is only 9 years old at his accession this is when Elizabeth's life takes a perilous turn she is placed into the care of her most recent stepmother Katherine par she is newly married to King Edward's Uncle Thomas Seymour Seymour is handsome but 30 years Elizabeth senior this probably is one of the most tumultuous periods in Elizabeth's life it's certainly a a confusing and dangerous period for her Thomas Seymour is an incredibly handsome man he's the uncle of the new King Edward the 6 brother of James Seymour very very eligible very good-looking very Charming although one contemporary describes him as somewhat empty of matter so he's perhaps not as clever as he thinks he is Elizabeth seems to have been quite Charmed by Thomas SE she is a young girl a teenager just approaching her 14th birthday and she does seem to have had a bit of a crush on him but he very much exploits this soon it's made apparent that Seymour is more interested in the teenage Elizabeth than his own wife Catherine and we know from the accounts of Elizabeth's servants that very soon after he joins Katherine's household Thomas Seymour starts coming into Elizabeth's bed chamber early in the morning morning it's really really inappropriate Catherine par soon discovers the affection Seymour Harbors for Elizabeth and the young princess is sent away the Regency Council realized Thomas's bid for power and his plan to potentially marry Elizabeth and seize the throne for himself January 1549 he is arrested um for apparently trying to kidnap the king he's certainly trying to bring down his brother who is the Lord protector Thomas Seymour is tried for treason Elizabeth herself does not realize that she has become embroiled in a treasonous scandal until her Governor cat Ashley is arrested Elizabeth's servants are arrested and she is interrogated and she comes very close to disaster Elizabeth is also arrested and questioned but the princess manages to plead for her life and her Freedom Thomas Seymour is not so lucky and having been convicted of 33 charges of treason by the council he is executed this early relationship whether it was consensual romance or sexual harassment and all the dangers that came with it were an early indication to Elizabeth of how love could lead to death and self-destruction Edward v 6 was a highly intelligent young man he was well versed in most subjects and he was also a radical religious thinker this was certainly encouraged by his uncles who shared the Protestant faith in fact he was something of a religious zealot and unlike his father who remained a traditional catholic Edward imposed a fully Protestant Reformation on England for the first time though their father Henry began the break with Catholic Rome it is under Edward's zealous rule that the English Reformation begins in [Music] Earnest Elizabeth as the daughter of the radical Evangelical Queen Anne berin is comfortable in Edward's new Protestant England by the time the king is 12 multiple Catholic rebellions have been quelled prayer books published in his native English and his uncle and protector Edward Seymour the Duke of Somerset has been executed in 1553 Edward is Gravely ill he has not had a chance to marry and sireen Heir and is loath to let his new Protestant England fall into his sister Mary's Catholic hands Edward is a boy king and a fiercely Protestant one too and his Heir at the time is his elder sister Mary who is a devout Catholic and a Roman Catholic too this causes enormous tensions between the two their differences are so great that Edward cannot conceive of his sister Mary succeeding to the throne and undoing the Protestant Reformation that he is an acted upon the country and he goes to Great Lengths in order to disinherit his sister from the line of succession by June he knows that he is dying he redrafts his will naming his cousin the 16-year-old Lady Jane gray his successor he unfortunately dies at the age of 15 but his legacy is certainly the Protestant Reformation because it is under Edward that protestantism becomes established in England when we think about Edward we often think of him as a boy King as a footnote to the reign of his father but actually the Protestant Reformation really should set his Reign apart and we should look more closely at just what Edward achieved in the wake of Edward's Death Lady Jane gray is suddenly proclaimed Queen and is taken to the Tower of London which is usually the uh Center of political power at the point of a coronation but support lies overwhelmingly with Mary Henry VII's eldest Catholic daughter Mary arrives in London with an army of men and seizes the Tower of London Lady Jane gray is arrested and later executed and Mary takes her rightful place on the throne of England the eldest child of Henry VII Mary is a devout Catholic she swiftly unravels all of the Protestant policies of her brother and declares her parents marriage valid the new Queen repeals the last of Henry VII's religious laws thus returning the English church to Roman jurisdiction and restoring papal Supremacy in England [Music] Elizabeth's life hangs in the balance throughout Mary's Reign her Protestant Faith places her at risk of treason as to believe in a different God than that of the Monarch was an act of disloyalty so heresy was both a civil and religious offense punishable by death during Mary's Catholic Reign many Protestants are arrested imprisoned and [Music] executed desperate to avoid a similar succession crisis as her brother Edward and to ensure her own Catholic rule of England Mary is desperate for a son and [Music] air Now 37 she marries King Philip II of Spain as a result Rebellion Sparks early in 1554 there is a Great Rebellion against Mary it is led by Sir Thomas Wyatt and it begins in Kent Thomas Wyatt rebels in favor of Princess Elizabeth ascending to the throne Wyatt marches his troops up to London and actually it's really it's a very very dangerous situation for Mary and she is urged to flee her Capital by her advisers she refuses and actually makes a speech at the Guild Hall in London and it's absolutely the speech of her life and we can see Elizabeth modeling later speeches on this Mary talks about being married to her country and it really rallies the people of London in her support so that when Wyatt's troops cross the river into London they are met with a substantial Army and they are defeated that day Mary believes that Elizabeth is part of this conspir Y and arrests her sister imprisoning her in the Tower of London indeed it is likely she is held in the very same rooms that her mother was once held in this must have been terrifying for Elizabeth however Mary ultimately knew that Elizabeth was her only Heir there was no one else to succeed her so therefore she had no choice but to let Elizabeth go [Music] Mary believed that she came to the throne with God's favor that God had supported her so she sees her queenship as divinely inspired so it seems only natural that she will give birth to a Catholic heir to the throne to keep her half sister away from the crown Mary was determined to have a son and air and at one point she believed very much that she was pregnant so she has all the symptoms of pregnancy the doctors agree everyone is very very excited and she makes preparations for the birth she then retires for her lying in which is usually about a month before a woman believes she'll give birth and so she waits and then she waits and she waits some more and nothing happens tragically this was a phantom pregnancy and no children ever came from her marriage to philli heartbroken and grieving following several Phantom pregnancies Mary considers her false pregnancy to be God's [Music] punishment by the start of 1558 it is clear that it's only a matter of time before Elizabeth takes the throne Mary is not going to have a child and her health is [Music] declining after only 5 years on the throne and having provided no air Mary dies in 1558 leaving her throne begrudging me to her Protestant sister Elizabeth Elizabeth is immediately proclaimed Queen and she is told at Hatfield while she is sitting reading under an oak tree given the fact that it's November and it's very very cold this looks very much like a stage scene that she is waiting to be told that she is now Queen there was something of a sigh of relief in the country who had been exposed to quite radical measures to return the country back to the Catholic faith and they hoped that the young Elizabeth would provide more stability more peace and Harmony following her accession at Hatfield Elizabeth makes her way to London she's met by cheering crowd she is Henry VII's daughter and in fact her coronation portrait is very much much reminiscent of her father she's displaying herself as Henry the8's [Music] daughter it was entirely customary for monarchs to be crowned within a couple of months of their Ascension to the throne but Elizabeth was Keen to choose the most opportune date in which the crown was to be placed on her head and therefore she employed the court astrologer John D to look at her birth map and choose the most opportune date for her [Applause] [Music] Ascension Elizabeth was the Monarch but it's a man's world monar is really the only office that is open to a woman in Tudor England so Elizabeth's Government is made up entirely of men and she immediately sets about appointing her Council for centuries before her father's Reformation England had been a Roman Catholic country under the policies of her father brother and then sister England's religious tensions had resulted in battles verging on Civil War I think it is safe to say that Elizabeth was a Protestant but when she came to the throne she knew that she had to be pragmatic when Elizabeth became Queen England was a Catholic country and so the question of what the state religion would be was was really on everybody's lips because she was well known to be a Protestant in 1559 she created her religious settlement where she set the state religion and it was a Protestant church the church of England was Protestant however it wasn't as staunchly Protestant as it had been in her brother Edward's Reign so Elizabeth tried to take something of a compromise approach something of a middle way she stated that she had no desire to open Windows into men's souls and this must have been something of a relief to her kingdom when Elizabeth exceeds to the throne she returns the country to protestantism but is much more moderate than her siblings in her policy towards religion um her own inclination wasn't to be quite as Puritan which is the hotter sort of protestant as her brother had been and for example she liked to keep a silver crucifix in the chapel Royal on the altar something that was hugely offensive to the Puritans at her Court however there were catholic factions who were entirely opposed to Elizabeth's rule they deemed her as illegitimate because of how her mother had been executed and therefore I think it's safe to say that Elizabeth became increasingly intolerant of those with a Catholic faith she saw them as foreign she didn't um believe that they could be trusted and this was compounded by numerous plots against her life that were enacted by Catholics Parliament passes the act of Supremacy and the act of uniformity and only asks for outward confirmation to protestantism Mary's heresy law were repealed to avoid a repeat of the persecution of dissenters practiced by her sister the new Queen is 25 years old and beautiful so she is never short of sutors foreign Kings and princes from all over Europe wish to Wed her Arch Duke Charles of Austria Eric I 14th King of Sweden Henry Duke of Anu and later King of France franois Duke of Alonso and even her Elder sister's widower Philip II of Spain [Music] Judah women had very few rights they were expected to marry and they would then become effectively the property of their husband I think Elizabeth learned a huge amount about the risks that came with marriage from her mother's downfall indeed I think these risks were also compounded when at only 9 years old the same thing happened again to her stepmother Catherine Howard I think Elizabeth learned a huge amount about how vulnerable women were to their husbands how subservient they had to be and it's broadly similar for a queen although a reigning Queen does retain some Authority their husband will become king and will be deferred to and become the dominant [Music] party and we can see this with Mary the first who marries Philip of Spain and he becomes king of England we can see this in Scotland where Mary Queen of Scots marries Henry Lord Darley and he becomes King Henry of Scots and Elizabeth was also keenly aware that in order to rule as a woman in your own right you really had to do so alone Elizabeth is expected to marry and give England a king Elizabeth actually receives a deputation from the House of Commons not long after she becomes Queen where they petition her to marry and she takes it in very good Grace but she says to them you know since I've been a child I have decided that I'm going to remain unmarried that I'm going to be a virgin I'm going to reign as a Virgin Queen it doesn't really cause any stir which is surprising but really it's because just nobody believes believed her I mean it was a ridiculous suggestion that this young girl of 25 would hope to reign as Queen of course she had to marry of course she had to give England the king her role was to produce hirs to continue the dynasty taking a vow of celibacy and promising that she will never marry she states that she will rule as a Virgin Queen it's actually quite difficult to think of who Elizabeth could have married because there's really no candidate that would please everyone and she's well aware of this her sister Mary had been expected to marry and she did give England a king but for most people he wasn't the right King very few people wanted Philip of Spain as king of England Elizabeth had watched Mary's disastrous marriage to a foreign King which resulted in a bloody rebellion and England being forced into Wars with France as well as this her own father father had been married six times she had been left incredibly vulnerable by the downfall of her mother she knew that if she had married her husband would automatically have become a king regnant and Elizabeth wanted control not only of her own destiny but that of her kingdom too growing up Elizabeth had had no less than four stepmothers following her own own Mother's execution at her father's hands quite apart from her own inclination not to marry and not to share power she would also know that actually it would be impossible to find a candidate that would please [Music] everyone but by 1559 it is clear that Elizabeth has formed a romantic attachment to her childhood friend and master of the horse Robert Dudley the Earl of Lester her cousin Mary Queen of Scots had married for love in 1567 Mary married James fourth Earl of Bothwell whom many believe to have murdered her second husband Henry Stewart Lord darnley only a few weeks prior thus Mary was forced to abdicate the throne amidst a [Music] rebellion all this serves as a constant reminder to Elizabeth how dangerous love can be so she decided to be both queen and king of England forever alone on the throne unwilling to give up her sovereignty as her sister had the queen remains true to The Vow she made early in her Reign never to marry many tried to prove Elizabeth the illegitimate child of Henry VII claiming her parents marriage to be bigamous or claiming her mother to have Bewitched the king it became important for Catholics to undermine Elizabeth's legitimacy this was exacerbated by people like the Catholic recusant Nicholas s who wanted to cast Anne in the role as a witch he suggested that she had six fingers three breasts and also suggested that she was actually the illegitimate daughter of King Henry VII and that Elizabeth had been born as a product of incest this monstering of an bin as a witch really was designed to undermine Elizabeth's Authority legitimacy and to encourage people to remove her from the throne even Pope pasus I declared her illegitimate in 1570 and released her subjects from obedience to her calling her a criminal impostor from this point onwards several conspiracies and assassination attempts would threaten her life in 1568 Mary Queen of Scots seeks refuge in England Mary Queen of Scots is undoubtedly Elizabeth's rival Mary was born in 1542 and when she was 6 days old she became reigning Queen of Scotland Mary is undoubtedly the biggest threat to Elizabeth and this is because of her place in the English succession so Mary is is effectively her Heir she is the next hereditary heir to the throne Mary Queen of Scots was Elizabeth's first cousin and she had something of a tempestuous Roar in Scotland she had been forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in favor of her one-year-old son James however when she arrives in the country the Catholic Queen is put under house arrest she will be imprisoned for almost 20 years and it was the absolute worst decision she could have taken because Elizabeth was the one person who could never allow Mary to have her freedom because Mary is such a threat to her rule Mary becomes a figurehead for Catholic resistance under Elizabeth's Protestant rule indeed people already thought that Mary had a more legitimate claim to the English throne and this really matters to Elizabeth because Elizabeth is still legally illegitimate so legally she has no title to the throne other than by Act of Parliament and by her father's will when Elizabeth hears that Mary has landed in the north of England she orders that she be placed under house arrest and Mary remains imprison by Elizabeth for 20 [Music] years in 1569 there was a major Catholic Uprising led by a number of Earls in the north of England [Music] they were to marry Mary to Thomas Howard the fourth Duke of Norfolk and declare them king and queen of England after the Rebellion had been quashed Elizabeth had 750 Rebels executed in 1580 Pope Gregory I 13th issued a clarification to the initial papal bull explaining that Catholics in England should obey the queen outwardly in all civil matters until such time as a suitable opportunity presented itself to overthrow her going as far as to say that it would be no sin to rid the world of such a miserable heretic plots against Elizabeth hasten in response as her endless imprisonment continues Mary of Scott's own support for the murder of Elizabeth is evident if that would lead to her own Liberation and Catholic restoration of England thus far Mary has avoided voided direct involvement in the plotting and scheming for the throne but this is about to change and there are several plots at least that her name is mentioned in or that she seems to have had Direct involvement in Mary did conspire to overthrow Elizabeth and to place herself on the English [Music] Throne lastly of course she's involved in the babington fot where she gives her consent to murder Elizabeth in many respects this is a really sensible policy for Mary because actually were Elizabeth to die at any point during Mary's imprisonment it's really likely that Mary would be declared Queen of [Music] England in 1587 correspondence is intercepted By Elizabeth's men that will Dam Mary beyond a shadow of a doubt the letter reads let the great plot commence signed Mary it had been proved without doubt that Mary had consented to murder Elizabeth Elizabeth knew that Mary wanted her [Music] dead Elizabeth now has no other Choice than to sign the death warrant for years Elizabeth had conducted her statecraft masterfully and had avoided war despite Rising tensions between France and the rest of Catholic Europe but when news of Mary's execution reached Spain a War [Music] Began King Philip of Spain had assembled a huge Fleet of ships and sailed to the Netherlands to meet the Duke of Palmer from there they set anchor at C and planned a Mann invasion of Elizabeth's Protestant England the Spanish have a much larger Fleet and the odds are stacked against the [Music] Queen the English were expecting an invasion from Spain and Philip built a great Fleet the Spanish Armada so Elizabeth goes to her troops at Tilbury to try and ready her forces Elizabeth really showed her metal at a speech that she gave at Tilbury she talks about having the body of a weak and feeble woman but having the heart and stomach of a king and a king of England she really rallies the troops she portrays herself as a war leader the English rally their troops preparing themselves for invasion but then the weather breaks and the tides turn storms form and winds blow scattering the Spanish Fleet her commanders Lord Howard of Effingham and Francis Drake are able to scatter the Spanish Fleet partly by Aid of a Protestant wind that blows in the English [Music] favor England sends burning fire ships which Scorch and sink the armada's [Music] gallions the English sail back to Plymouth Victorious it is a Triumph of Elizabeth's Reign and this is where the mythology of Elizabeth really starts the truth of the matter is that it was more than weather than uh anything that Elizabeth had done that was the downfall of the Armada but this is where Elizabeth the powerful Virgin Queen really comes into prominence it is at this point that the mythology of Elizabeth begins from this point onwards she becomes Gloriana the Virgin Queen the semi- Divine monarch of myth and Magic the defeat feat of the Armada was the high point of Elizabeth's Reign and we know Elizabeth was a great propagandist and she was determined to use this to create capital on a European stage and one way that she did this is actually through iconography we've got the Armada portrait which was commissioned and it shows Elizabeth in her absolute prime the Armada portrait as the name suggests is painted in the immediate aftermath of the Armada crisis and it's celebrates the victory that the English have achieved and sort of strengthens Elizabeth's power as a [Music] [Music] result I think what's really interesting about this portrait is on the one hand it belongs to a really specific Moment In Time it is directly alluding to the Armada crisis in 1588 but at the same time it projects an image of timelessness and we see this most clearly in Elizabeth's face you know she's in her mid-50s when this portrait is painted and yet she still has the white skin and the red hair that had become Central to her image from the moment that she took the throne decades earlier in real life she was maintaining this appearance through heavy makeup and through a wig and in her portraiture she always um ensured that she was depicted as a kind of youthful figure and ageless Beauty this served the purpose of propaganda particularly in the latter stages of her Reign because it sort of basically sore off um potential problems that would arise and instability that would arise from her lack of an air it created this appearance of sort of a continuous and sort of unaging powerful Monarch and in the Armada portrait that image becomes particularly seductive particularly powerful because it's associated with the imagery of Maritime Triumph and also Imperial expansion she is resting her hand on a globe this image is sort of saying that Elizabeth's Legacy her power will continue through the Empire that she is building for the future it shows Elizabeth as the Monarch that she wants to present to the world she is a warrior Queen she is at the absolute height of her powers a cult of personality begins to manifest around her Elizabeth understands her need to be seen by her people and re recognizes the role of Her Image in how she is perceived as a woman and in turn as Sovereign I think the first thing to remember is that the chudah portraits that survive today represent a mere fraction of the vast and varied body of portraiture that existed in the 16th century this was a period in which portraiture played an increasingly popular and important role in culture um especially for monarchs like Henry VII and Elizabeth I who used portraits as a kind of Royal propaganda ordinary people would have encountered Royal portraits on the coins in their pockets and some people might have displayed printed portraits like Engravings and wood cuts on the walls of their homes then you also had more expensive and more elaborate painted portraits displayed in public spaces like universities and Guild halls and of course also in the homes of noble courtiers she cultivates an image of a queen who does not need a king to be seen as capable and Powerful in the same league as any other Renaissance Prince in portraits processions and literature Elizabeth is venerated as Gloriana the Virgin Queen the semi- Divine ruler of England Elizabeth really refined Her Image over the years she understood the power of dressing powerfully of covering herself in jewels of accentuating her femininity and I think this is where the myth of the Virgin Queen really comes from it's not only a statement about the fact that she is ruling in her own right that she isn't touched by man she also very much uses her femininity to her advantage in her propaganda because actually being a woman is a major disadvantage for a ruler in the period And yet actually she is able to use this and to turn it around contemporaries talk of being in love with Elizabeth she's seen as ageless eternally beautiful she's the fairy queen she's Gloriana and actually again we can see this in her portraits because she doesn't age when we see portraits of Elizabeth we're seeing Elizabeth through the mirror of propaganda so her face remains white and unlined and beautiful throughout her Reign it's only paintings painted after her death where we actually start to see the Aging Queen because any portrait that was unlatching would simply be destroyed under her steady guiding hand England flourishes but time stands still for no man or woman and by the late 1590s Elizabeth is hurtling towards 70 years old the aien queen increasingly suffers from bouts of melancholy following the deaths of several her close [Music] companions in March 1603 the queen now 69 dies in her Chambers at Richmond Palace Elizabeth was destined to be the last of her Dynasty and of course she knew this she had no children she had no nephews and nieces there was no one else to carry on the tudah line Elizabeth died childless and at the end of her Reign came the end of the chuda dynasty although she's not the first English reigning queen or the first reigning Queen in new iseland of Britain she was undoubtedly the woman that proved that women could reign in England she reigned for over 40 years and she reigned independently she didn't have a king and she was very much in control of her kingdom and I think that's her greatest Legacy really it is her contribution to English queenship all subsequent reigning Queens have to some extent modeled themselves on Elizabeth we see this with Queen Anne in the 18th century for example who when she becomes Queen she actually takes as her motto sea Edom always the same and this was the motto of Elizabeth the and so this is her Legacy she is the first truly great reigning Queen on the island of Britain actually I think one of Elizabeth's greatest legacies was demonstrating that Queen could rule in her own right without a man she was a queen who did not need a king [Music]

Channel: Royalty TV

Views: 8,768

Keywords: Royalty, Royal Family, Diana, Princess Of Wales, Harry, Duke Of Sussex, Megan, Duchess Of Sussex, King Charles III, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles, Queen Camilla, prince william, princess kate

Id: WjtuLo5yQ6E

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2024