The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

The skilful and politic queen, well pleased to find her lovely head still resting on her own shoulders instead of on the executioner’s block, gave thanks to God for her deliverance, and henceforth left theology in peace. The orders given to the chancellor not having been revoked, the next day he arrived with forty men to arrest the queen, but King Henry, feigning surprise and anger, sent him away with much apparent displeasure.

Thus had Queen Catherine’s wit saved her neck, and the strong grip of the increasing gout now came to her rescue, and this Prince of Shams soon found himself held in the clutch of such a sturdy foe that neither qualms of conscience, nor tears, nor threats, could rid him at last of this dread consort of the tomb. Death claimed him, and the royal hypocrite was forced to yield to that relentless conqueror; and Henry VIII. faced the awful tribunal where no pretensions or shams could avail to hide the horrid deformity of his sin-polluted soul.

Upon the death of Henry VIII. in 1547, his son Edward was proclaimed king as Edward VI. But this young king died in 1553, at the age of sixteen years, and the mighty realm of England was left to the conflicting succession of two princesses, both of whom their royal father had stigmatized with the ban of illegitimacy. In this emergency the Protestants, headed by the Duke of Northumberland, determined to set up a new claimant.

The daughter-in-law of the Duke of Northumberland was Lady Jane Grey, who was the granddaughter by her mother’s side of Mary, queen-dowager of France, and sister of Henry VIII. Upon the death of young Edward, the Duke of Northumberland appeared before the gentle Lady Jane, – who was occupied in reading Plato in Greek, – and bowing his haughty knee in the presence of his daughter-in-law, he exclaimed: —

“The king, your cousin and our sovereign lord, has surrendered his soul to God; but before his death, and in order to preserve the kingdom from the infection of Popery, he resolved to set aside his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, declared illegitimate by an act of Parliament, and he has commanded us to proclaim your Grace as queen and sovereign to succeed him.”

Thereupon the poor, unwilling Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, but dearly did she buy her ten days of sovereign power. Mary was speedily brought to London and declared queen, and for this innocent offence the gentle Lady Jane Grey afterwards met death upon the scaffold.

The reign of Mary was made infamously illustrious by the execution of Lady Jane Grey and many others, and the burning at the stake of the bishops Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and many other religious martyrs. So sanguinary was the reign of this queen that she is known in history as Bloody Mary.

Poor Catharine of Aragon! It were surely sad enough to have borne the many sorrows of her afflicted life, without having her only surviving child stamped with such a name of infamy. Mary was the first queen-regnant of England. The queens of England are classified as queen-regnant, queen-consort, or queen-dowager. The first alone reigns in her own right as sole sovereign of the realm. Of the forty queens of England beginning with Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, who was the first crowned consort, and ending with Victoria, the present queen of England, five were queens-regnant and thirty-five queens-consort.

Elizabeth Tudor, the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, was born in 1533, on the seventh of September. On the tenth of the same month, the royal babe of three days was christened with great pomp and ceremony.

The walls between Greenwich Palace and the Convent of the Grey Friars were hung with tapestry, and the way strewn with green rushes. The baptismal font was of silver; it was placed in the middle of the church, raised three steps high, the steps being covered with fine cloth, surmounted by a square canopy of crimson satin fringed with gold, enclosed by a rail covered with red ray, and guarded by several gentlemen with aprons and towels about their necks. Between the choir and body of the church a closet was erected with a pan of fire in it, that the child might be dismantled for the ceremony without taking cold. When all these things were ready, the child was brought into the hall of the palace, and the procession proceeded to the Grey Friars’ church. The citizens led the way, two and two; then followed gentlemen, esquires, and chaplains; after them the aldermen, then the mayor by himself, then the privy council in robes, then the gentlemen of the king’s chapel in copes, then barons, earls; then the Earl of Essex, bearing the gilt covered basin; after him the Marquis of Exeter with a taper of virgin wax, followed by the Earl of Dorset bearing the salt, and the Lady Mary of Norfolk, bearing the chrism, which was very rich with pearls and precious stones; lastly, came the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, bearing in her arms the royal infant, wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, having a long train furred with ermine, which was borne by the Countess of Kent, assisted by the Earls of Wiltshire and Derby.

The Duchess was supported on the right side by the Duke of Norfolk, with his marshal’s rod, and on the left by the Duke of Suffolk – the only dukes then existing in the peerage of England – and a rich canopy was borne over the babe by the Lords Rochford, Hussey, and William and Thomas Howard.

At the church door the child was received by the Bishop of London, who performed the ceremony, and a grand cavalcade of bishops and mitred abbots. The sponsors were Archbishop Cranmer, the Dowager-Duchess of Norfolk, and the Marchioness of Dorset.

The future queen was carried to the font, and with the ceremony of the Catholic church christened Elizabeth, after her grandmother, Elizabeth of York; and that done, Garter King-at-Arms cried aloud, “God, of his infinite goodness, send prosperous life and long to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth. Then the trumpets sounded, the princess was carried up to the altar, the Gospel read over her, and she was confirmed by Archbishop Cranmer and presented with the following gifts: – A standing cup of gold by Cranmer; a similar cup fretted with pearls, by the Duchess of Norfolk; three gilt bowls, pounced, with covers, by the Marchioness of Dorset; and three standard bowls graven and gilt, with covers, by the Marchioness of Exeter. Then, after wafers and comfits had been served in abundance, the procession returned to the palace in the same order as it had set out, excepting that the Earl of Worcester, Lord Thomas Howard, the Lord Fitzwalter, and Sir John Dudley, preceded by the trumpeters, carried the gifts of the sponsors before the princess. Five hundred staff torches carried by the yeomen of the guard and the king’s servants, lit up the way homeward; and twenty gentlemen, bearing large wax flambeaux, walked on each side of the princess, who was carried to the queen’s chamber-door, when a flourish of trumpets sounded and the procession dispersed.”

The tiny infant, christened with all this ceremony, was created Princess of Wales when three months old; and when in her thirteenth month, an attempt was made to betroth her to the Duke D’Angoulême, the third son of Francis I., of France. Rather a strange proceeding concerning the spinster queen of England.

The tragic death of Anne Boleyn left this babe motherless at three years of age.

The first public ceremony in which Elizabeth participated was the christening of Edward the Sixth. She was then just four years of age, and was borne in the arms of the Earl of Hertford, brother to the queen, Jane Seymour. Elizabeth carried in her tiny hands the chrism for her new-born half-brother; and after the ceremony she walked with infant dignity in the procession, being led by the hand by the Princess Mary.

For some time, Elizabeth was allowed to reside in the same palace with the infant Edward, and she displayed the greatest affection for him. When she was seven years old she made the little prince a birthday gift of “a shyrte of cam’yke of her owne woorkynge,” which was quite precocious, considering her tender years.

The Princess Mary evinced great regard for her sister Elizabeth; and when the brutal King Henry deposed both these princesses from their rights of succession, and stigmatized them as illegitimate, and sent word to Mary that she should no longer treat Elizabeth as princess, Mary wrote a letter to her father, the king, in which she kindly mentioned Elizabeth thus: “My sister Elizabeth is in good health, and such a child, too, as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.”

Anne of Cleves was granted permission to see Elizabeth, even after her divorce, providing Elizabeth did not address her as queen; and all of the wives of Henry VIII. evinced great love for the Princess Elizabeth; and through the influence of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII. restored Elizabeth to her right of succession, although the act which pronounced her illegitimate remained forever unrepealed; and after she had become queen of England, she refrained from requiring Parliament to repeal those acts of her father which had declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void; and she contented herself with an act of Parliament which declared in general terms her rights of succession to the throne.

While the youthful Edward VI. was king, the Princess Elizabeth was involved in certain questionable relations with the Lord High Admiral Seymour, who had married the Queen-Dowager Catherine, a few weeks after the death of Henry VIII.

Upon the death of Catherine, a year afterwards, Lord High Admiral Seymour aspired to the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. There is no doubt that Elizabeth loved Seymour; and, as she acknowledged, would have married him if the consent of the royal executors could have been obtained; but as such an alliance was considered beneath her, Elizabeth was shut up for a time in a sort of imprisonment, and the lord high admiral was conveniently disposed of by being led to the scaffold.

It is amusing to note that the hand of this much-courted and confirmed-spinster queen was once offered by Henry VIII. to a Scottish earl of equivocal birth and indifferent reputation, who actually declined the honor. But Elizabeth, when queen of England, proudly refused earls, dukes, and even kings, though it must be confessed she served the king of Sweden, who was one of her most constant suitors, rather meanly; for this royal lover sent her a magnificent present consisting of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ships’ loads of the most precious articles his country could produce, which princely gift Elizabeth most graciously received, but wrote to this ardent lover, that she anxiously hoped he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitless voyage, – rather strange royal etiquette, to receive the suitor’s gift and then reject the giver.

Regarding Elizabeth’s mental acquirements, her learned preceptor, Roger Ascham, thus wrote: —

“The Lady Elizabeth hath accomplished her sixteenth year; and so much solidity of understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have never been observed at so early an age. She has the most ardent love of true religion and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than hers, no memory more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English; Latin with fluency, propriety, and judgment; she also speaks Greek with me frequently, willingly, and moderately well. Nothing can be more elegant than her handwriting, whether in Greek or Roman characters. In music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight. With respect to personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendor, so despising the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing gold, that in the whole manner of her life she rather resembles Hippolita than Phœdra.

“She read with me almost the whole of Cicero and a great part of Livy; from these two authors, indeed, her knowledge of the Latin language has been almost exclusively derived. The beginning of the day was always devoted by her to the New Testament in Greek, after which she read select portions of Isocrates, and the tragedies of Sophocles, which I judged best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a defence against the utmost power of fortune. For her religious instruction she drew first from the fountains of Scripture, and afterwards from St. Cyprian, Melancthon, and similar works. In every kind of writing she easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetched expression. By a diligent attention to these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice that there was nothing in Greek, Latin, or English, prose or verse, which, according to its merits or defects, she did not either reject with disgust or receive with the highest delight.”

After the accession of Mary to the throne, the Wyatt rebellion took place: and as it was reported that the Princess Elizabeth was implicated, she was confined for three months in the Tower. Elizabeth was then conveyed to Woodstock, where she endured a less rigorous imprisonment. Her correspondence was carefully watched, and it was with great difficulty that she succeeded at length in appealing to the queen. It was at this time that she wrote upon her window with a diamond the following lines: —

“Much suspected, of me
Nothing proved can be,
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.”

As her Protestant proclivities were well known, when by the marriage of Mary to Philip of Spain, Popedom was re-established in England, Elizabeth thought it policy to attend the confessional; and upon one occasion being asked what was her belief regarding the “blessed sacrament,” she gave this famous and ambiguous answer: —

“Christ was the word that spake it;
He blessed the bread and brake it.
And what the word did make it,
That I revere and take it.”

During this imprisonment, Elizabeth received a message from the queen, offering her immediate liberty on condition of her accepting the hand of the Duke of Savoy in marriage. But the proud princess preferred imprisonment to compulsory wedlock, and she continued for some time longer in forced seclusion. At length Philip, the husband of Queen Mary, who seemed to be the person most persistent in regard to this marriage of Elizabeth, now resolved to try more lenient measures, as severity would not coerce her into obedience. The princess was accordingly released from her imprisonment, and invited to a grand ball at the palace, to which the duke was also welcomed as a guest. Elizabeth was attired for this occasion in a robe of white satin embroidered all over with pearls; but the matrimonial matters do not seem to have advanced favorably, notwithstanding; and the death of Queen Mary soon after left Philip of Spain a widower, and he himself now became a suitor for the hand of the young Queen Elizabeth. But to his suit, also, Elizabeth turned a deaf ear, and Philip was henceforth her bitterest enemy.

At the time of the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England, the English people were much divided in religious opinions consequent upon the three important theological changes which had taken place in the short space of twelve years.

“King Henry VIII. retained the ecclesiastical supremacy, with the first-fruits and tenths; maintained seven sacraments, with obits and mass for the quick and the dead.

“King Edward VI. abolished the mass, authorized one Book of Common Prayer in English, with hallowing the bread, and wine, etc., and established only two sacraments.

“Queen Mary restored all things according to the Church of Rome, re-established the papal supremacy, and permitted nothing within her dominions that was repugnant to the Roman Catholic Church. But the death of Mary was the ruin of all abbots, priors, prioresses, monks, and nuns.

“Elizabeth, on her accession, commanded that no one should preach without a special license; that such rites and ceremonies should be used in all churches as had been used in her Highness’ chapel; and that the Epistles and Gospel should be read in the English tongue; and in her first Parliament, held at Westminster, in January, 1559, she expelled the papal supremacy, resumed the first-fruits and tenths, repressed the mass, re-introduced the Book of Common Prayer and the sacraments in the English tongue, and finally firmly re-established the Protestant Church of England.”

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.”

The reign of “Good Queen Bess” has been held in reverence, in comparison with that of “Bloody Mary,” her sister, which was stamped with infamy; and the “Elizabethan age” is one of the most illustrious in the annals of literature.

The government of Elizabeth was acknowledged to have been admirably managed, as regards her foreign policy, her wars, treaties, and alliances with other European powers. With the exception of Leicester and Hatton, her statesmen were well chosen. Lord Burleigh was her prime minister for forty years, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, and his more famous son, Francis, were among her wise and remarkable ministers.

Navigation, manufactures, and trade, made great advance during her reign. She was the first to establish trade with Turkey and Russia, and was the first sovereign who sent ambassadors to those courts. Mirrors and drinking-glasses from Venice, also porcelain and damask linen were then first introduced into England; but with all this advance forks were still unknown, and Queen Elizabeth, and her elegant belaced courtiers, and her stately beruffed dames, still ate with their fingers.