Elizabeth I as a Protestant Leader

Résumé du document

Declared illegitimate at the age of three, judged for treason at the age of twenty-one but crowned queen when twenty-five, it is in 1558 that the City of London recognized Elizabeth Tudor, Henry VIII's second child and sister to Edward VI and Mary I, as Elizabeth I, the true monarch of England. Elizabeth was a true child of the Renaissance. She spoke several foreign languages and knew Greek and Latin. She could play musical instruments, such as the virginal, and she was also fond of parties and all forms of pageantry. It was under her reign that flourished the greatest poets and playwrights, namely Edmund Spenser and his 'Faerie Queen', an honour to Elizabeth, Christopher Marlowe and his 'Doctor Faustus' and of course William Shakespeare and his numerous plays and poems. In 1558, the most urgent problem was the issue of religion. She regarded religion as a branch of politics and behaved in accordance to what was expedient. If Elizabeth declared herself a Protestant, it was not that obvious. Numerous plots were attempted against her and her 'heretic religion'.

Extraits

[...] She was succeeded by James VI of Scotland who was to become the first English King of the Stuart dynasty. This dynasty was very important because it saw, with the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the 1701 Act of Settlement, direct consequence to that revolution. This Act stated that the throne of England would be seated only by Protestant monarchs. It assured the permanence [1]of the life of the Anglican Church throughout the centuries. Permanence : ici dans son sens littéraire, i.e. pérennité. [...]

[...] In 1558, the most urgent problem was the issue of religion. She regarded religion as a branch of politics and behaved in accordance to what was expedient. If Elizabeth declared herself a Protestant, it was not that obvious. Numerous plots were attempted against her and her “heretic religion”. Thus, the question we are entitled to wonder is the following: how was Elizabeth considered by people” concerning her religious tendencies and what were her “political” achievements, the term political in accordance with her definition of religion, viz. [...]

[...] He proposed marriage to Elizabeth, which she refused because she did not want anyone to be between her and the power. Humiliated by her rejection but under the pretext of a religious crusade, he organised an invasion force, namely the so-called Spanish Armada. The aim of this expedition was to invade and conquer England and thus to depose Elizabeth, which would put an end to a Protestant country and would restore a Catholic England. At the eve of the Spanish invasion, the queen proved to be a real fighter who had heart of a king”. [...]

[...] Elizabeth became Queen of England on November 17th 1558. She was adopted by the City of London as a Protestant saviour, or as Deborah, judge and restorer of Israel”. With the help of Sir William Cecil, her closer lord at the court and privileged councillor whom she appointed very soon after her coronation, she achieved the so-called Elizabethan Settlement for the Church of England. In this settlement, two acts were passed by Parliament. The Act of Supremacy put forward the Tudors' political aim and ideological method of claiming a return to an ancient and original theological and political purity, lost by the incursions of the Roman Church. [...]

[...] Elizabeth, a declared protestant but a moderate one Concord was the slogan: the twenty-five-years-old queen was fêted as a peacemaker. She made her best to answer all her people's wishes. A royal marriage with French King's brother, the Duke of Anjou She was not as sharp and drastic as her sister could have been. For instance, it would have mere fantasy for Mary to contemplate the fact of marrying a Protestant nobleman. But, as for Elizabeth, marrying a Catholic, that is to say a man who had not the same religious bias as hers, was something that could be thought about. [...]