ELIZABETH THE FIRST
You
need to know:
(1)
Why some people were troubled at the thought of another female ruler
after Elizabeth
(2)
What were the contemporary opinions about women
(3)
What role Elizabeth was expected to perform
(4)
How Elizabeth tried to overcome any disadvantages over her sex
LIFE
FOR WOMEN IN TUDOR TIMES
In
the early modern period, the position of women was contradictory and constantly
shifting. At this time, the beliefs of the Roman Catholic doctrines and the
beliefs of the Protestant faith were at odds with each other. This battle for
supremacy between the two faiths helped to cause the turmoil of the early
woman�s position. On the one hand, for Roman Catholics, the woman who remained
a virgin was a "special" being and all other women were seen as
somehow lesser, corrupted beings. Married women were necessary for
multiplication of the human race but also tainted because of this activity. The
Protestant view of virginal women and married women was different. Single women
were seen as having a handicap that could only be remedied through the process
of marriage. There was an honourable and acceptable position for single women in
the Catholic faith: the nun. She had some power over herself. In the Protestant
faith, the only honourable position for a woman was marriage and, to a lesser
degree, widowhood. These contradictory views made a woman�s position
ambivalent.
However,
it must be noted that despite the shifting religious views of the period, the
16th century were definitely patriarchal societies, with the father/husband seen
as the supreme ruler of his children/wives. A single woman was subject to the
rule of her father until her majority. Most women were married before her
majority. There were certain societal functions in place to assure the marriage
of a woman before her majority. She was jeered at and made to feel socially
unacceptable if she reached her majority unmarried. Names such as "old
maid" and "spinster" were used to denigrate her status and
encourage her to marry. Her chastity was often questioned . As a single,
unmarried woman, she could not own or sell property, draw up her will or
initiate law suits. Every possible device was used by society to pressure a
single woman into marriage.
During
this period, there were three types of women: single women, married women and
widowed women. As noted above, the single woman was considered her father�s
chattel and under heavy pressure to marry. Only through marriage did she gain
any measure of power and control, and then usually only over her own household.
Even with marriage, a woman held no legal identity or rights. Widows, on the
other hand, did have legal identities and legal rights.
Widows
were exceptions or anomalies to the 16th century patriarchal society. A widow
was considered an "ungoverned woman" who challenged and threatened
societal norms of the period. A widow had legal rights that single and married
women did not have. A widow never directly inherited land, though she could hold
it for a minor son. She had the legal right to control her properties in her own
or her children�s interests. She could draw up her own will. A widow was free
to choose her next husband, while a never-married woman usually had her
prospective husband chosen for her. The knowledge that with remarriage came the
loss of these legal rights caused many women to decide against remarriage. Since
the widow was often seen as "ungoverned" and "threatening"
to current social norms, societal pressure was put on the widow to remarry or be
considered sexually promiscuous and often called a whore. Never-married and
widowed women were discriminated against and made to feel inferior to married
women.
During
this sojourn in Geneva Knox also published his "First Blast of the Trumpet
against the Monstrous Regiment of Women" (1558), harshly critical of the
rule of the two female Catholic rulers: Mary of Guise, regent of Scotland,
and Mary Tudor, Queen of England. His anti-female language did nothing to
endear Knox to Elizabeth who became Queen of England in 1558!
There
was some concern over Elizabeth becoming Queen as she was considered
inexperienced, was not married and there had been the disastrous reign of Mary.
Yet
by the end of her reign attitudes had changed and indeed many considered that
England had now become an effeminate society. In 1592 Thomas Nash attempted to
justify historical drama with an argument which rested entirely on the notion of
historical difference: that reconstructions of the 'valiant actes' of the past
might provide 'reproofe' to the 'effeminate dayes' of the present. The notion
that England in the 1590s had become feminised seems to be further corroborated
by report of a contemporary proverbial saying; in 1599 the Swiss traveller,
Thomas Platter, recorded in his journal that:
there
is a proverb about England, which runs, England is a woman's paradise . . .3
Whilst
acknowledging that these accounts, or primary historical sources, are
observations and possible generalisations from a male perspective, and that many
Elizabethan women may have provided an alternative appraisal, it cannot be
denied that in the 1590s a woman had successfully governed England for more than
forty years, a lifetime by contemporary standards; most English men and women at
this time would therefore have known none other than female rule. This situation
did not occur again until the second half of the nineteenth century.
In
the 1590s, far from being 'man's estate', the kingdom, the power, and the glory
of 'this sceptred Isle' remained singularly hers, for the virgin queen
chose never to marry and share her estate with a man. Indeed, Elizabeth's
unmarried status sets her apart from the few women of power who gain a place in
Tudor history and historical drama, women who, with the notable exception of
Joan of Arc, all owe their social positions to men, being wives, would-be wives,
widows and mothers. But for a woman to hold a position of political power in the
sixteenth century was not in itself unique; indeed the second half of the
century enjoyed an unprecedented flux in female rulers and heads of state: Mary
Tudor, Elizabeth I, Mary Stuart, the dowager Queen Catherine de Medici in France
all held the reigns of social and political power at a time when, paradoxically,
the dominant ideology endorsed male supremacy. In England women had been active
within Tudor government even before the arrival of a female monarch: Henry VII's
mother, Margaret Beaufort, acted as regent in establishing her grand-son as
king, and Henry VIII's wives, Catherine of Aragon and Catherine Parr, were both
formally appointed as regents to serve when their husband was in France. In
terms of the sixteenth century approbation of queens, it is also worth
remembering that the only serious attempt to usurp Queen Elizabeth I was made on
behalf of another woman, Mary Stuart, and with regard to Elizabeth's successor
there were those who still favoured another female monarch: Robert Cecil was
accused of secretly negotiating with Spain to establish the Spanish Infanta as
Queen of England after Elizabeth's death, and Sir Walter Ralegh was imprisoned
by James I, and finally executed, for his treasonable support of Arabella Stuart
as contender for the crown.
Unlike
the male monarchs of England's medieval past, men who seized and/or maintained
power by military force, Elizabeth I (like her grand-father, father and siblings
before her), maintained her position of supremacy in England by law and
diplomacy, the Tudors having dismantled the private armies, active during the
preceding 'Wars of the Roses', in order to secure civil peace. Describing
Elizabeth's political power in 1579, Stephen Gosson explained:
God
hath now blessed England with a Queene, in vertue excellent, in power mightie,
in glorye renowned, in gouernmente politike, in possession rich, breaking her
foes with the bent of her brow, ruling her subjects with shaking her hand,
remouing debate by diligent foresight, filling her chests with the fruites of
peace, ministring justice by order of law. . . .
In
comparing past and present, Gosson also lamented the loss of the more manly
physical pursuits, such as wrestling, running and archery, in favour of more
womanly pleasures:
the
exercise that is nowe among us, is banqueting, playing, pipying, and dauncing,
and all suche delightes as may win us to pleasure, or rock us to sleepe . . .
Our wrestling at armes, is turned to wallowing in Ladies laps, our courage, to
cowardice, our running to ryot, our Bowes to Bolles, and our Dartes to Dishes.
By
1595 Sir John Smithe noted a distinct decline in military prowess, claiming
that: 'the discipline Militaire of our auncestors . . . is so forgotten and
neglected amongst us'. Although military battles continued to be fought during
Elizabeth's reign, they were largely fought on foreign soil and on the high
seas; the memorable 'heroes' of the Elizabethan era, men who upheld and
glorified the traditional 'masculine' values of courage, action and adventure,
were no longer the brave hearts of the battlefield, but sailors and explorers,
men such as Drake and Raleigh who sailed into the unknown world and returned to
delight their mistress with strange stories of those far-away foreign places,
bringing back bounty to enrich the Queen's coffers. There were of course
soldiers and military leaders who gained recognition for their successful
exploits in battle: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, is perhaps the prime example
of an Elizabethan Earl who attempted to win glory, supremacy and popularity via
this route. The French Ambassador, Andr� de Maisse, observed in 1597 that he
was 'entirely given over to arms and the war', describing him as 'courageous and
ambitious, . . . hoping to attain glory by arms'; but glory in Elizabethan
England was not to be gained in this out-moded fashion and Essex ended up on the
scaffold, not the throne. Indeed, the only member of the Elizabethan aristocracy
to actually die from wounds incurred on the battlefield was a man who not only
noted that the Queen was 'very apt upon every occasion to find fault with him',
but who gained his place in history not so much as a soldier, but as a poet --
Sir Philip Sidney. Military service was far from rewarding under Elizabethan
rule. In 1588, following the successful Armada campaign, the Queen refused to
issue cash payments to her war veterans; not until 1593 were disability pensions
awarded, by which time many entitled to claim had already died. Susan Frye has
even put forward a very convincing case which throws doubt on the authenticity
of the much publicised image of the Queen clad in armour and wielding a
truncheon to personally rally her troops at Tilbury before arrival of the
Armada. Frye argues that 'No reliable eye witness account exists of what
Elizabeth I wore or said when . . . she visited her troops at Tilbury', and that
this Boudica like figure was probably fictional propaganda created by a later
generation of anti-pacificts.
Detailed
portraits of the Elizabethan champions of the tilts present these glamorous
young men in staged settings, wearing colourful, star-spangled costumes and
brightly polished armour, their plumed helmets removed to display loose flowing
and curled locks; according to one contemporary spectator some even wore their
hair 'hanging down to the girdle like women'. Male fashions in general took on a
decidedly female shape in the Elizabethan period, padding out the chest and
widening the trunk hose to effectively narrow the waistline; nevertheless these
glittering young men of the nobility continued to display their maleness by
exposure: wearing flesh-coloured stockings and discarding the trunk hose
altogether, they wore their doublets so very short as to be almost indecent.
Thomas Nash described Elizabeth's male courtiers as 'Peacockes . . . buckram
giants . . . stuft with straw and letters . . . glittring Attendaunts on the
true Diana'. These paste sparklers who imitated the real star (they often wore
white and silver to complement Elizabeth's virgin state), were not seeking
advancement by acts of courage against the enemy, they were vying for the
attention and favour of their powerful queen.
Until
recently the paucity of documentation relating to the individual lives of women
of the past contributed to the general view that women were insignificant,
oppressed members of all past patriarchal societies, a view which served to
equate rather than differentiate the lives of women across the centuries,
generalisations filling the unknown gaps in the historical record. Blanket terms
such as 'early modern' further serve to bracket together disparate experiences,
locating equivalences rather than differences in the lives of women from the
Renaissance right up to the modernity of the present. Many of the first
appraisals of woman's history were gleaned from 'official' documents, documents
produced almost entirely by men -- historical chronicles and theological and
theoretical treatises -- but the current interest in woman's history has begun
to shed greater light on woman's past, unearthing a wealth of additional
material -- letters, diaries and previously neglected documents -- private,
rather than public sources, documents relating to lives lived rather than models
to live by, and perhaps, most significantly, reassessing the situation from a
woman's perspective.
Whilst
there can be no denying that in the sixteenth century women were officially
regarded as inferior to men and, as a result, some suffered cruelty and hardship
at the hands of their male superiors, there is also evidence to suggest that
although female subordination was the theological and theoretical rule, in
practice the situation may have been somewhat different. The sixteenth century
theoretical argument concerning the nature of woman and her role in society is
evidence in itself of contemporary anxiety over attitudes which had come to be
regarded as contentious at this time and an obvious explanation as to why such a
debate should arise is that in practice women were not corresponding to the
pattern outlined in theory. Hence that violent 'Blast of the Trumpet'
(1558) from John Knox, retaliating against female rule itself:
To
promote a woman to beare rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realme,
nation or citie, is repugnant to nature, contumelie to God, a thing most
contrarious to his reveled will and approved ordinance . . . Nature I say, doth
paynt them furthe to be weake, fraile, impacient, feble and foolishe: and
experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruell and lacking the
spirit of counsel and regiment.33
In
spite of such animosity, woman continued to rule successfully for a further
forty five years. But even at a more popular level women were contravening the
codes of convention. For example, whereas the good woman was supposed to confine
herself to the home and remain in obedience to her husband or father, the women
of Elizabethan England were gaining a reputation for freedom and
insubordination. On the subject of obedience A homily on the state of
matrimony, published in 1562, reminded wives of their subjection, providing
justification for their compliance as if anticipating objections:
For
thus does St Peter preach to them: ye wives be ye in subjection to obey your
own husband . . . For surely this doth nourish concord very much, when the
wife is ready at hand at her husband's commandment, when she will apply herself
to his will . . .
By
the end of the century the Swiss traveller, Thomas Platter, observed a flagrant
breach of normally viewed requirements, maintaining that:
the
women-folk of England . . . have far more liberty than in other lands, and know
just how to make good use of it, for they often stroll out or drive by coach in
very gorgeous clothes, and the men must put up with such ways, and may not
punish them for it, indeed the good wives often beat their men . . .
That
the women of Elizabethan England had no individual legal rights is not disputed,
yet in spite of this at least some succeeded in achieving positions of personal
power. As the author of The Law's Resolutions of Women's Rights (1632)
observed, even when the law is an obstruction which denies female independence,
'some women can shift it well enough.' The formidable Bess of Hardwick, who
became the Countess of Shrewsbury by her fourth marriage, has been described as
'the circumventor par excellence' and is perhaps the most famous example
of the powerful Elizabethan matriarch, a woman who managed both her children and
her many husbands well enough, amassing a personal fortune into the bargain. But
for the majority of women who remained financially dependant upon men, male
dependency was not necessarily synonymous with male control. Henry Percy was
particularly harassed by the behaviour of his wilful wife, the Lady Dorothy,
sister of the less than chaste Lady Penelope Rich and Robert Devereux (who lost
his head for trying to set it above that of his sovereign Queen).
Although
Platter's description of women beating their men-folk seems to imply a reversal
of gender roles, the claim that these were 'effeminate dayes' suggests this was
not the case, but that women were exercising their own prerogatives in a
decidedly female fashion -- not least the Queen herself. The advent of women in
positions of political authority meant that by the 1590s the relationship
between gender and power was undergoing revision. Female heads of state had
begun to forge new images of authority, images which figuratively borrowed from
the past, and from mythical and religious sources, in order to establish an
authoritative image for the early-modern female prince. These images of female
power were not monolithic. For example, Elizabeth I was quick to deny comparison
of herself with Catherine de' Medici.
But
in terms of gendered identity the semiotics of power was complicated by the
notion of the monarch's two bodies -- political and natural, a notion which
Elizabeth was able to use to advantage. 'She beareth two persons', wrote Edmund
Spenser, 'the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most
virtuous and beautiful lady'. Verbal and pictorial images of the monarch's body
politic could transcend the limitations of the natural body, as, for example in
the portrayal of Francois I of France en travesti (Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris) where he is depicted as an amalgam of gods and goddesses, an
androgynous image of the body politic created without detriment to his personal
masculine identity. Likewise, Queen Elizabeth's political authority could be
described in androgynous terms, that she was 'king and queen both', whilst her
physical appearances before court and country ensured that she was personally
recognised as decidedly female. Even in her advanced years she would make a
point of deliberately drawing attention to her natural female body. For example,
a French ambassador described how:
attired
in a dress of silver cloth, white and crimson . . . She kept the front of her
dress open, and one could see the whole of her bossom, and passing low, and
often she would open the front of this robe with her hands.
However,
since the female body was traditionally equated with weakness, portraits of
Elizabeth displayed her political power in symbol, emblem and allegory,
manifestations which, like her own virginity, were not outwardly visible in her
female body. In contrast to antique, allegorical images of woman, which
continued to equate power with physical strength (Historia, on the title
page of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, is a near naked,
muscular woman holding the globe above her head, like Hercules), portraits of
Elizabeth often emphasise her femaleness, and locate her power away from her
actual body. For example, in the 'Ditchley Portrait', painted around 1592
(National Portrait Gallery, London), the image of Raleigh's Herculean Historia
is actually reversed. Here the globe supports the Queen, her dainty feet resting
on the map of England, near to Ditchley, home of her master of the Armoury; the
Queen's body is concealed in a rich, jewel-encrusted gown which bears little
resemblance to the shape of the human form beneath, and in her long elegant
fingers she holds a fan to maintain her female cool, and a pair of gloves that
her soft hands may remain so. The Queen's political power is manifest in her
land, her wealth, her armoury and, as the sonnet to her left explains, in that
greater invisible 'power divine'. Of course Elizabeth used her femininity -- in
particular her own invisible virginity -- as a source of power to command
respect and obedience and to induce her many rituals of courtly love, epitomised
by the 'Accession Day Tilts'. Regal power itself was therefore no longer
identified in terms of 'masculine' physical strength, but with woman and with
her allusive omnipotence.
John
Knox (1514 - 1572 AD), is perhaps after Luther and Calvin the best known
protestant theologian during the time of the Reformation, a foremost Protestant
leader in Scotland and �father� of the Church of Scotland. Knox wrote this
book while in exile against the three queens who were ruling England, France and
Scotland at the time.
The
main contention of �The First Blast of the Trumpet� is that the
exercise of authority by women is contrary to both natural law and religion. The
interest of this lengthy treatise for us is that Knox's arguments reflect the
beliefs of the day, both among Catholics and Reformers.
.
. . .�To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above
any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature; an insult to God, a thing
most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance; and finally, it is
the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.�
.
. . �Nature, I say, does paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient,
feeble, and foolish; and experience has declared them to be inconstant,
variable, cruel, lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And these notable
faults have men in all ages espied in that kind, for the which not only they
have removed women from rule and authority, but also some have thought that men
subject to the counsel or empire of their wives were unworthy of public office.
For thus writes Aristotle, in the second of his Politics. What difference
shall we put, says he, whether that women bear authority, or the husbands that
obey the empire of their wives, be appointed to be magistrates? For what ensues
the one, must needs follow the other: to wit, injustice, confusion, and
disorder.�
.
. . . �But lest that we shall seem to be of this opinion alone, let us hear
what others have seen and decreed in this matter. In the [Roman] Rules of the
Law thus is it written: "Women are removed from all civil and public
office, so that they neither may be judges, neither may they occupy the place of
the magistrate, neither yet may they be speakers for others." . . . The Law
further will not permit that the woman give anything to her husband, because it
is against the nature of her kind, being the inferior member, to presume to give
anything to her head. The Law does moreover pronounce womankind to be
most avaricious (which is a vice intolerable in those that should rule or
minister justice). And Aristotle, as before is touched, does plainly affirm,
that wheresoever women bear dominion, there the people must needs be disordered,
living and abounding in all intemperance, given to pride, excess, and vanity;
and finally, in the end, they must needs come to confusion and ruin.�
.
. . �I might adduce histories, proving some women to have died for sudden joy;
some for impatience to have murdered themselves; some to have burned with such
inordinate lust, that for the quenching of the same, they have betrayed to
strangers their country and city; and some to have been so desirous of dominion,
that for the obtaining of the same, they have murdered the children of their own
sons, yea, and some have killed with cruelty their own husbands and children.
But to me it is sufficient (because this part of nature is not my most sure
foundation) to have proved, that men illuminated only by the light of nature
have seen and have determined that it is a thing most repugnant to nature, that
women rule and govern over men.�
�Woman
in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and
command him. As St. Paul does reason in these words: "Man is not of the
woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the
woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the woman to have
a power upon her head" [1 Cor. 11:8-10] (that is, a cover in sign of
subjection). Of which words it is plain that the apostle means, that woman in
her greatest perfection should have known that man was lord above her; and
therefore that she should never have pretended any kind of superiority above
him, no more than do the angels above God the Creator, or above Christ their
head. So I say, that in her greatest perfection, woman was created to be subject
to man.�
�But
after her fall and rebellion committed against God, there was put upon her a new
necessity, and she was made subject to man by the irrevocable sentence of God,
pronounced in these words: "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy
conception. With sorrow shalt thou bear thy children, and thy will shall be
subject to thy man; and he shall bear dominion over thee" (Gen. 3:16).
Hereby may such as altogether be not blinded plainly see, that God by his
sentence has dejected all women from empire and dominion above man. For two
punishments are laid upon her: to wit, a dolour, anguish, and pain, as oft as
ever she shall be mother; and a subjection of her self, her appetites, and will,
to her husband, and to his will. From the former part of this malediction can
neither art, nobility, policy, nor law made by man deliver womankind; but
whosoever attains to that honour to be mother, proves in experience the effect
and strength of God's word. But (alas!) ignorance of God, ambition, and tyranny
have studied to abolish and destroy the second part of God's punishment. For
women are lifted up to be heads over realms, and to rule above men at their
pleasure and appetites. But horrible is the vengeance which is prepared for the
one and for the other, for the promoters and for the persons promoted, except
they speedily repent. For they shall be dejected from the glory of the sons of
God to the slavery of the devil, and to the torment that is prepared for all
such as do exalt themselves against God.�
�Against
God can nothing be more manifest than that a woman shall be exalted to reign
above man; for the contrary sentence he has pronounced in these words: "Thy
will shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall bear dominion over thee"
(Gen. 3:16). As [though] God should say, "Forasmuch as you have abused your
former condition, and because your free will has brought yourself and mankind
into the bondage of Satan, I therefore will bring you in bondage to man. For
where before your obedience should have been voluntary, now it shall be by
constraint and by necessity; and that because you have deceived your man, you
shall therefore be no longer mistress over your own appetites, over your own
will or desires. For in you there is neither reason nor discretion which are
able to moderate your affections, and therefore they shall be subject to the
desire of your man. He shall be lord and governor, not only over your body, but
even over your appetites and will." This sentence, I say, did God pronounce
against Eve and her daughters, as the rest of the scriptures do evidently
witness. So that no woman can ever presume to reign above man, but the same she
must needs do in despite of God, and in contempt of his punishment and
malediction.�
�
.
. . �And how that woman ought to obey man, Augstine speaks yet more clearly in
these words, "The woman shall be subject to man as unto Christ. For
woman," says he, "has not her example from the body and from the
flesh, that so she shall be subject to man, as the flesh is unto the Spirit,
because that the flesh in the weakness and mortality of this life lusts and
strives against the Spirit, and therefore would not the Holy Ghost give example
of subjection to the woman of any such thing," etc. This sentence of
Augustine ought to be noted of all women, for in it he plainly affirms, that
woman ought to be subject to man.�
�
.
. . �St. Jerome agrees in every point, who thus writes in his Hexaemeron:
"Adam was deceived by Eve, and not Eve by Adam, and therefore it is just,
that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor whom she called to sin, lest
that again she slide and fall by womanly facility." . . . . He proceeds
further, saying, "Women are commanded to be subject to men by the law of
nature, because man is the author or beginner of the woman: for as Christ is the
head of the church, so is man of the woman. From Christ the church took
beginning, and therefore it is subject unto him; even so did woman take
beginning from man that she should be subject."
�
.
. . �Ambrose, writing upon the second chapter of the first epistle to Timothy,
after he has spoken much of the simple arrayment of women, he adds these words:
"Woman ought not only to have simple arrayment, but all authority is to be
denied unto her. For she must be in subjection to man (of whom she has taken her
origin), as well in dress as in service." And after a few words, he says,
"Because that death did enter into the world by her, there is no boldness
that ought to be permitted unto her, but she ought to be in humility."
Hereof it is plain, that from every woman, be she married or unmarried, is all
authority taken to execute any office that appertains to man. Yea, it is plain,
that every woman is commanded to serve, to be in humility and subjection.�
In
The Heart and Stomach of a King, Carol Levin analyses the devices that Elizabeth
I used to reconcile the conflict between her rule and her femininity. I would
like to focus on chapters 2, 4 and 6, since in these chapters Levin explains
some of these strategies.
In
chapter 2 �Elizabeth as Sacred monarch, �Levin begins by looking at the
discussion about the legitimacy of a female monarch. She mentions the debate
between John Knox (�The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous
Regiment of Women�) and Aylmer�s response to the former (�Harborrowe for
faithful and trewe subjects�) regarding Elizabeth�s role in religious
matters. Levin mentions some of the mechanisms used to consciously invest the
public self of the Queen with religious significance, avoiding, at the same
time, to construct an image that could undermine her femininity. Among others,
Levin documents the compromise solution of the Supremacy Act, that gave
Elizabeth the title of Supreme Governor over the Church of England (in
opposition to Henry VIII�s tittle of Supreme Head); and particularly she
emphasizes the reminiscences of Elizabeth�s public image to the Virgin Mary,
which Levin reads as an effort to fill the void left after the rupture with he
Catholic Church.
In
the fourth chapter, �Wanton and Whore,� Levin explores the importance of
chastity in the creation of the female ruler. She argues that the only source of
honor for a woman was her sexual �credit�: losing it in public could have
devastating consequences. Levin proposes that Elizabeth manipulated this
feminine virtue to the extreme in order to fashion herself as an adequate ruler
for England. However, her use of chastity could also work against her, since any
rumours about her sexual life could have political implications. The Treason Act
of 1571, that reaffirmed the definition of treason to include gossip about the
Queen, supports Levin�s argument.
Finally
in �Elizabeth as King and Queen�, Levin studies how through the theory of
the Queen�s Two Bodies, Elizabeth came to create an image of herself that
combined masculine and feminine attributes reconciling the possible
contradictions of a female ruler: �If a kingly body politic could be
incorporated into an actual natural female body - her natural self - how much
more natural right Elizabeth had to rule, and to rule alone� (Levin, 123).
However, Levin complicates this argument a little more by stating that even
though there are two bodies, there is no exact correspondence between the
masculine body and power. Instead, she suggests that Elizabeth redefined the
limits of the traditional gender expectations. To support her argument he draws
on the literary production of the time. She looks at the female heroines in both
Twelfth Night (Olivia) and Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice) and defends that
these non-crossed-dressed heroines �expand gender definitions� since they
�as women act in powerful ways that might be called male� (Levin, 127). She
finally makes a connection between these characters and Elizabeth herself, since
the Queen, too, was perceived, according to Levin, as an actor on stage, her
public life and sense of self being understood as a performance. Levin�s
efforts to reconstruct and reason the processes by which Elizabeth became
Elizabeth I, the Vrigin Queen, may help in understanding the significant
relationships of gender, sexuality, power and politics in Early Modern England.
However, even if Levin�s arguments are convincing, I would disagree with her
reading of the Queen�s public self as a perfect instance of
�self-fashioning� (in Greenblatt�s terms), I would rather suggest that the
representations we have are the result of a reciprocated process in which the
legal, political, literary and artistic discourses of the time met.
Tar
Steel�s views
The
first feminist, the goddess of the Reformation, the Virgin Queen, the first
spin-doctor. Whatever you want to call her she was the most remarkable female
ruler in history. She was the original femme fatale.
Elizabeth
made herself a powerful image of female authority in a man�s world. She was a
skillful politician and used her sex as an advantage. She played off the cult of
the Virgin Mary and became the Virgin Queen married to her kingdom. Even though
she was thought of as the Virgin Queen she kept the intrigue alive. She
accomplished this by allowing herself to be courted by many important suitors
such as Philip II of Spain, the King of Sweden and the King of France. She
played one off the other and kept negotiations going for years but never married
any of them.
At
the core of Elizabeth�s decision to remain single was her unwillingness to
share her power. She said "I will have here but one mistress and no
master" and "I would rather be a beggar and single than a Queen and
married." She charmed her suitors, her courtiers and her parliament. Her
godson wrote "We all loved her for she said she loved us." Elizabeth
was a performer and this often kept the level of intrigue and anxiety high. One
minute she was infatuated with an individual and they next they incited her
famous Tudor anger. These displays were all calculated political moves. Instead
of trying to calm the anxiety felt at court Elizabeth used it to keep people
wondering where they stood. No one ever knew what Elizabeth was thinking or
where exactly they stood with her.
Elizabeth
was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn. Before
Elizabeth had reached her third birthday her father had her mother beheaded on
charges of treason and adultery. After the death of Anne Boleyn, Henry had their
marriage declared invalid thus making Elizabeth illegitimate. Apparently Henry
didn�t notice the logical inconsistency of invalidating the marriage and
accusing his wife of adultery. Even though Elizabeth was declared illegitimate
Henry still kept her in line for the throne.
It
is recorded that Elizabeth had the temper of her father, but also
"womanly" compassion. She didn�t want to be thought of as
bloodthirsty like her father was. She was a Protestant ruler but allowed her
subjects to worship as they wanted in private if they were Anglican in public.
She stopped her father�s, brother�s and sister�s practice of killing based
on religious belief. She did this against the wishes of an all male Parliament.
Somehow
Elizabeth escaped the gender restrictions of her time. She did this by being a
spin-doctor. Elizabeth made her image. She dressed to kill, glittering with
jewels in wondrous costumes to dazzle those around her. She went on royal
progress, what we would call a photo-op today. She could rouse a crowd or charm
a citizen. She could flirt with a courtier and then inspire their fear.
Elizabeth had flattering portraits painted and distributed copies everywhere.
She encouraged poets and songwriters to compose flattering pieces about her. She
was a myth-making machine and that is part of why she is remembered today.
She
made a name for herself as a legitimate ruler and united the poor, fragmented
island of England into a strong global power. She spawned England�s empire.
She also loved the arts. The Elizabethan Age in history is one filled with
culture. Theatre, poetry, ballads and art all flourished during this time. She
created a happy, bright culture in England while there were bloody wars, famines
and disease.
Elizabeth
was a monarch that will always be remembered. She was a woman ahead of her time.
She was a woman that fought her way into a man�s world. Although she fought
her way in she never lost her "womanly" identity. Elizabeth took some
of the first steps on the long road woman would walk for equality. So, Virgin
Queen, spin-doctor, Gloriana, goddess of the reformation, whatever one calls her
she is Elizabeth the first feminist.
Elizabeth
I broke the mould. "She set out to rule like her father", Anne McLaren
contends, "and she was well equipped for the job. She was highly educated
by any standard: she was schooled in foreign affairs and knew six different
languages. She was very experienced in terms of the milieu in which she was
operating, and she understood the issues which concerned her supporters. She
also had a forceful personality, and extraordinary emotional control. Above all,
she recognised that producing or nominating a male heir, or even marrying, would
make her vulnerable to being usurped or sidelined. She was smart enough to go
through the motions of choosing a husband, but she stayed steadfastly
single."
In
public pronouncements, Elizabeth I started out by referring to herself as
'queen' and 'princess'. By the end of her reign she was confident enough to
describe herself as England's 'prince' and 'king' - indirectly addressing the
anxieties of her male subjects, faced with a sterile female ruler. She was no
'honorary male', however. Instead, she was a genuinely new phenomenon: England's
first - and also its last - 'fully empowered' female monarch, says Anne McLaren.
"Elizabeth
I's personal qualities enabled her to rule in a way which had not been seen
before in England, and she had a lasting impact on the monarchy. A century
later, Queen Anne took Elizabeth I as her role model, and today we take it for
granted that our kings and queens are equally empowered. But 16th century
monarchs still had considerable personal power, whereas today power rests
largely with the Parliament. None of Elizabeth I's female successors have been
able to rule in their own right to the same degree.
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