England Under the Tudors by G. R. Elton

Author:G. R. Elton [Elton, G. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9780415065337
Google: zhSrMsqnlaUC
Goodreads: 1224068
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1955-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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The Elizabethan Settlement, 1558–68

1. The Situation in 1558

The young woman of twenty-five who ascended the throne of England on 17 November 1558 presented a much more formidable figure than her devout and blundering half-sister. A naturally imperious, self-willed and selfish character in the best Tudor tradition had been schooled by a hard childhood and adolescence into patience and calculation; even her rages were usually controlled by her mind. Elizabeth’s character was of steel, her courage utterly beyond question, her will and understanding of men quite as great as her grandfather’s and father’s. She was a natural-born queen as her sister had never been—the most masculine of all the female sovereigns of history. At the same time she nourished several supposedly feminine characteristics. She was persistently dilatory, changed her mind as often as chance offered, exasperated everybody by her refusal to come to decisions, and charmed them all back again by some transparent piece of graciousness. Determined never to marry—her reasons seem to have been both political and personal—she developed two unpleasingly old-maidish traits: a show of permanent youthfulness and desirability on the one hand, on the other venomous jealousy of younger women who found husbands. Her parsimony has already been explained as the careful housekeeping of a poor queen faced with ruinous expenses, and it is certainly true that she needed to save all she could. But however justified she was in husbanding her resources, the shifts and deceits and broken promises she often resorted to came perilously near to genuine miserliness. She was a great queen and never less than queen: sagacious, brave, tolerant where it was wise, and tenacious of her rights where tolerance would have been weakness. But she fell far short of that standard of angelic perfection—that inability ever to do wrong—which some would like to ascribe to her, explaining even her errors of taste and judgment as superlative examples of political skill. After 350 years, the old spell is still at work.

What really matters, of course, is Elizabeth’s ability in politics—her standing as a queen rather than her pretty obvious failings as a woman. One great difficulty in arriving at a fair verdict lies in her long association with her chief minister, Sir William Cecil, from 1571 Lord Burghley. The partnership began only three days after the queen’s accession with Cecil’s appointment as principal secretary; it was not dissolved till Burghley died in 1598, less than five years before his mistress. The son of a Northamptonshire gentleman who had risen to affluence as a courtier of Henry VIII, Cecil first obtained office in 1550 as a follower of the Protector Somerset. He showed much pliancy in the years that followed, serving Northumberland despite that duke’s attack on his patron, and though he lost his place under Mary he preserved life and liberty by judicious attendance at the mass, even as the Princess Elizabeth did. The two had much in common. Both were by nature secular, holding religion to be a matter of conscience which need

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