T a l k i n g P o i n t s

Elizabeth I: Gender, Religionand PoliticsDid it matter that the fifth Tudor monarch was a womanrather than a man? Retha Warnicke investigates.

ELIZABETHA

A Patriarchal SocietyIn 1558, when Elizabeth I became thethird queen regnant of the British Isles,the prevailing models for her reignwere not propitious. The first queenregnant, Mary Stewart, whosucceeded to the Scottish throne in1542, had faced three rebellionsdirected against her husbands, who

were expected by her subjects tocontrol her reaim. Indeed in 1561Elizabeth had to send an envoy toFrance to inform Mary, whose firsthusband, Francis II, had recently died,that her French marriage had led tothe Lords of the Congregation'ssuccessful revolution in Scotland.Mary Tudor, the second queen

This woodcut shows Elizabeth with thetraditional symbols of monarchical power.But could a woman reign in the same waymen did?

regnant, who reigned from 1553 to1558, also offered a poor maritalexample. Choosing to wed Philip ofSpain, Mary had to squash armedchallenges to her authority by rebelsconcerned about Spanish influence.Addressing this issue in 1554,Parliament found it necessary to enacta statute establishing that queensregnant possessed sovereign powers.

In genera! females, whethermarried or single, were viewed asemotional and libidinous, incapable ofautonomous political action andbiologically inferior to males. Singlewomen - without husbands to advisethem and manage their affairs - werelooked upon with suspicion and wereexpected to live under the supervisionof male relatives or guardians. ThatElizabeth's Church of England joinedthe Protestant confession, whichchampioned women's vocation asmarriage, caused the status of thealready marginalised single woman tobegin to decline even further.

It was in this patriarchalatmosphere that Elizabeth succeededto the throne. Clearly, her royal statusexempted her from many femalehandicaps, but she had to govern arealm in which crown and churchoffice-holders were mostly male andto negotiate the prevailing view thatmonarchs ought to be kings. In 1565Sir Thomas Smith, equating the reignof a female ruler to that of a king in hisminority, stated it was understoodthat the counsel of wise men would'supply' her 'defaults'. Some writersargued that because a woman was

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In general females, whether married or single, were viewed as emotional andlibidinous, incapable of autonomous political action and biologically inferior to males.

incapable of controlling her appetites,she was more likely, as queen, tobecome a tyrant than was a king.

Two recent books have raisedquestions about whether it matteredthat Elizabeth was a female ratherthan a male ruler. In 1999 AnneMcLaren identified Protestants in bothEngland and Scotland, who, seeingthat they were to be governed byqueens regnant, expected the womennot only to listen to their Protestantmale councillors' advice but also toheed it. By contrast, in 2005, NatalieMears denied the existence of anyoverwhelming evidence provingElizabeth's councillors treated herdifferently from a male ruler. Althoughadmitting that she found somegendered criticisms of Elizabeth,Mears dismissed them as infrequent oroccasional. Gender was not the majorissue; religion was.

The ChurchIt seems appropriate to look at a fewof Elizabeth's problems to determinewhether her gender figured in herrelationship with her councillors. In1559, when she summonedParliament, the most pressing issuewas the religious settlement. TheChurch had gone through severalchanges since Henry VIII had becomethe Supreme Head of the Church. Inhis son Edward Vl's reign, the royalheadship continued and parliamentsauthorised English prayer books anddenied Christ's bodily presence in theEucharist. Following Mary Tudor'saccession, her parliaments revokedthese statutes, restoring papalallegiance and the Catholic mass.These various statutes reflected themonarchs' personal beliefs.

From the passage of the Acts ofUniformity and Supremacy in 1559,writers have questioned the nature ofElizabeth's faith. Although recognisingthat her denial of papal power meantshe adhered to some kind ofProtestantism, they believed thecompromises leading to thosestatutes' enactment made it unlikelythey wholly mirrored her beliefs. That

the statutes authorised an Englishprayer book displeased not only theCatholics, who preferred the Latinmass, but also some Protestants, whothought the reformed servicecontained too much ritual, such as thesign of the cross in christenings.Mostly Protestants did agree with theCatholics, however, that a womanshould not possess the Church'sheadship.

Since women were allowed neitherto deliver the sacraments nor topreach and were expected to remainsilent in their parish churches, howthen could the queen become thehead of the Church? Elizabeth'slegislators set out to ensure she wouldhave no sacerdotal function, but sincesomeone had to select theecclesiastics and monitor the Church'sgeneral well-being, they agreed toplace her in charge, settling on thetitle of Supreme Governor instead ofthe headship.

As Protestants sometimesassociated the headship with thepapacy, they found attractive thealternative status of governor, andElizabeth, who on some religiousissues, such as her hostility to clericalmarriage, was more consen/ative thanmany of her ministers, seemedcontent with the lesser title. Mostly, itmade no difference to her exercise ofadministrative powers, but some ofher councillors remained uneasy withher meddling in religious matters. In1560, Robert Jones wrote to SirNicholas Throckmorton, the Englishambassador to France, about a recentconversation with Sir William Cecil.The latter had criticised Jones forrevealing to Elizabeth theambassador's views on the Council ofTrent. Cecil had admonished Jones fortelling the queen 'a matter of suchweight, being too much, he said, for awoman's knowledge'.

In addition, preachers, even atcourt, gave sermons in which theyclaimed to be messengers sent by Godto remind Elizabeth of her Christianobligations. The Scottish minister JohnKnox is well known for lecturing, like

an Old Testament Prophet, to MaryStewart at Edinburgh about courtfrivolities, but English preachers alsowarned Elizabeth that God could sendambassadors to punish monarchs indefiance of His law. Especially werethey contemptuous of her mildnature, characterising her as a sheepand demanding she aggressivelypursue military endeavors, therebydenouncing qualities contemporariesidentified as feminine.

Elizabeth's disagreements with herfirst two archbishops of Canterbury,Matthew Parker and Edmund Grindal,and other ecclesiastics are wellknown. She expected them toenforce, on their own authority andnot hers, laws they disliked, such asrequiring clerics to wear vestmentsreminiscent to some of Catholicuniforms. A dispute over prophesyingswith Grindal is especially noteworthy.Ministers seeking further reformwanted to develop a preaching clergyand began scheduling meetings,called prophesyings, to offerinstruction in sermon-giving and inBiblical exegesis. After learning thatsome disaffected preachers wereusing them to promote beliefscontrary to Church doctrine, Elizabeth

Cecil had admonished

Jones for telling the queen

'a matter of such weight,

being too much, he said, for

a woman's knowledge'.

denounced the prophesyings assubversions of the ecclesiasticalhierarchy. Disagreeing with her,Grindal viewed them, if properlymanaged, as useful methods forcontinuing Church reform. When thefrustrated queen demanded hesuppress the prophesyings in 1577, herefused. He informed her in a letterthat she should take advice from her

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While without worrying about blemishing their honour, kings could beget illegitimatechildren, queens regnant could not take lovers without besmirching their reputationsand becoming the subject of gossip and innuendo.

bishops, since bishops had judgedRoman emperors, not emperors thebishops. He continued: 'RememberMadam, that you are a mortalcreature', and 'although ye are amighty prince ... he which dweileth inheaven is mightier'. While concedingshe was a mighty prince, Grindaladdressed her as Madam, not as YourMajesty. Ignoring the pleas of her privycouncillors, Elizabeth suspended himfrom office.

MarriageAnother troubling issue was thepossibility of Elizabeth's marriage. Hercouncillors agreed she should seek ahusband but, as she explained toParliament in 1559, when she was 25years old, it would suffice her to haveengraved on her tombstone that shehad lived and died a virgin. Shepromised that if God determined sheshould wed, she would take care tochoose a spouse who would notprejudice her realm. In 1566, sevenyears later, she was still assuringParliament that although she waspersonally not inclined to marry, shewould do so:

I will marry as soon as I canconveniently, if God take nothim away with whom I mind tomarry, or myself, or else someother great let [hindrance]happen. And I hope to havechildren; otherwise, I wouldnever marry.

Her speeches troubled her subjectsbecause, despite some of her well-known courtships, she did notaggressively move to completearrangements with a suitor. After hersister's accession, although alsodenying she wished to take ahusband, Mary had quickly chosenPhilip of Spain and ordered hercouncillors to negotiate their marriagetreaty.

The problem was as Hugh Latimerhad explained it in a sermon atEdward Vl's court. If the king weresucceeded by one of his half-sistersand she married a foreigner, England'sdiplomacy would be tied to his native

Sir Francis Knollys (1S14-96). He toldElizabeth plainly of his dismay ather reluctance to accept 'safe', i.e. mate,counsel.

land. After Mary wed Philip andagreed to join Spain in the French warin which Calais was lost, some criticsblamed his influence. The assumptionwas that a wife, even a queenregnant, would relinquish herauthority to her husband. By contrast,a king who wed a foreigner couldeasily reject the alliance underpinningtheir marriage because he remained incontrol of his realm. In 1516, in TheEducation of a Christian Prince,Erasmus warned against these unionssince they often fostered warfarerather than peace - his example wasthe union of Margaret Tudor andJames IV, which did not prevent Jamesfrom invading England and meetingdeath at Flodden Field in 1513.

To return to Latimer's sermon, ifone of Edward's half-sisters wed asubject, he would almost certainlyfoster discord in the realm byfavouring his allies. Norman Jones hasargued that when rumors spread in1560 about Elizabeth's possiblemarriage to Lord Robert Dudley, hispowers at court were greatlystrengthened against his rival, William

Cecil. Jones concluded about queensregnant: 'Any man to whom theywere attracted acquired through thepossibility of marriage inordinatepower in the realm; the sort of powerno mistress could ever achieve, sincemen were allowed to be out in theworld.' In other words, men couldmore easily than women promotetheir political agendas.

Her rumoured relationship withDudley caused Elizabeth otherproblems. While without worryingabout blemishing their honour, kingscould beget illegitimate children,queens regnant couid not take loverswithout besmirching their reputationsand becoming the subject of gossipand innuendo. In France, in late 1560,Ambassador Throckmorton was soincensed by the rumours circulatingabout Elizabeth's affection for Dudleythat he sent a messenger to warn herbluntly she was gravely damaging herhonour. Elizabeth's father hadennobled his illegitimate son as dukeof Richmond, and courted his nextwife before beheading or divorcingthe wife he already had, withouteliciting such disapproval from hiscourtiers.

Elizabeth decided never to marry,of course, and scholars are stilldebating when she first arrived at thatconclusion. Some claim it was in 1559when she informed her Parliament shepreferred the single life. Others thinkshe seriously entered into courtshipsuntil 1582, the year the one withFrancis, duke of Anjou, ended.Contemporaries also held opinionsabout her intentions. In March 1564Elizabeth's Scottish ambassador,Thomas Randolph, expressed the fearto Cecil that she had decided not tomarry, and later that year Sir JamesMelville, a Scottish ambassador inEngland, opined she would not take ahusband because she wanted to beboth king and queen.

It is likely that her decision not tomarry was for poiiticai rather thanpersonal reasons. As a single woman,she would not have to allow ahusband access to her apartments.

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thus avoiding any possible duplicationof the Scottish queen's experience.Because Mary Stewart had refused torelinquish regal powers to her secondhusband. Lord Henry Darnley, heinvited assassins into her supper roomin 1566 to imprison her and kill herallegedly influential secretary.Remaining unwed, Elizabeth couldalso avoid the seemingly inevitablerebellions against a queen regnant'sauthority when she chose a husband.

Mary Queen of ScotsAnother of Elizabeth's problems washow to treat her Scottish cousin. AfterJames Hepburn, earl of Bothwell,seized and raped Mary in 1567, shewed him, the usual reaction ofabducted early-modern heiresses.Some of her subjects, appalled byBothwell's advancement, imprisonedher and forced her to abdicate infavour of her son, James. When sheescaped in 1568 and her army metdefeat on the battlefield, she fled toEngland. Although officially failing todeclare Mary guilty of a crime,Elizabeth imprisoned her Catholiccousin, while permitting her youngson, James, guided by his Protestantregent, James, earl of Moray, tocontinue as king of Scotland.

Subsequently, Mary became involvedin various conspiracies to escapecaptivity.

As McLaren pointed out,Elizabeth's Protestant advisorsexpected her to seek and heed theiradvice. Nowhere is this more evidentthan in issues concerning the Scottishqueen. In 1568 Sir Francis Knollys,Elizabeth's maternal cousin bymarriage and the treasurer of thechamber (later of the household),became Mary's custodian. He wassurprised to hear a suggestion ofMary's agent, John Leslie, bishop ofRoss, apparently with Elizabeth'sapproval, for Mary's joint governanceof Scotland with James. Knollys wroteto Elizabeth that he was astonishedshe had let her judgement be ruled bythe 'affections and passions'dominating her thoughts and warnedher to consult with her faithfulcouncillors, whose opinion should begiven the most weight in treatingthese difficult matters. He remindedElizabeth of her duty to supportJames's Protestant regent andspeculated that Mary would be toostubborn to move to her nextdesignated residence if Elizabethappeared too tender and soft,qualities his contemporaries identified

A depiction of the execution of MaryQueen of Scots in February 1587. Hercouncillors had believed Elizabeth too fullof the milk of human kindness to dealeffectively with her cousin.

as feminine. Early the next year, afterlearning about Elizabeth's dealingswith Alvarez de Toledo, duke of Alva,regent of the Netherlands and Mary'sally, Knollys explained to his queenthat she should turn those difficultforeign policy matters over to hercouncil resident for resolution andwarned that her councillors could notgovern England unless she acceptedtheir advice.

Meanwhile, the imprisoned Maryagreed to wed Thomas, fourth dukeof Norfolk, as part of a plot calling forher recognition as Elizabeth's heir. Innorthern England in 1569, CharlesNeville, sixth earl of Westmorland, andHenry Percy, eight earl ofNorthumberland, fomented anunsuccessful rebellion, later called theNorthern Rising, denouncingProtestantism and supporting Mary'sEnglish claims. Upon learning that therebellion was suppressed, Elizabeth,concerned about military expenses,dismissed most of the troops raised tocombat the rebels. In response, her

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Henry Hooke welcomed James I as king with the comment: the 'electmight hope that what was not possible for a woman to effect, a manshould be both able and industrious to perform'.

maternal cousin, Henry Carey, firstLord Hunsdon and governor ofBerwick, wrote angrily to her,surmising that she must have beenbewitched and asserting her need toseek counsel from her trusted friends.

This plain speaking was mostevident in these relatives'correspondence, but others couid alsobe blunt. In 1571 Cecil, then ennobledas Lord Burghley, discovered evidenceof the Ridolfi Plot, proposing Catholicarmies invade England and release theScottish queen. This plot includedMary's marriage to Norfolk, whoplanned to rule England with her.Norfolk was condemned as a traitor inJanuary 1572 and beheaded in June;the Parliament demanding hisexecution also called for Mary's death.One of its members, Thomas Digges,warned that Elizabeth's faithfulsubjects would withdraw theirallegiance from her if she failed toheed their request to condemn Maryfor her crimes.

Until 1586 Elizabeth ignored herlegislators' and councillors' demandsthat she have Mary tried for treason.In July of that year, a letter AnthonyBabington wrote to Mary, promisingto obtain troops to free her and thento send six men to assassinateElizabeth, was intercepted by a spy ofher secretary. Sir Francis Walsingham.It was read, copied, and sent on toMary. In her intercepted, cipheredresponse to Babington, which nolonger exists, Mary allegedly placedElizabeth's assassination before herown release from prison. Yet thischange in Babington's proposedsequence is not credible since Maryhad long feared that if Elizabeth diedfirst, even of natural causes, then herEnglish custodian would kill hiscaptive. All historians agreeWalsingham's secretary recopied herciphered letter and added a postscript,requesting the names of the sixassassins. His recopied version, notMary's original, went to Babington. Itis likely Walsingham's secretary addedreferences in it to Elizabeth's

assassination, thereby creating thesequence Mary would have rejected.Probably, in her original response, shediscussed only the part of Babington'splot that involved her release, leavingElizabeth's death for others toarrange.

Walsingham carefully nurtured theconspiracy, waiting to arrestBabington until after Mary respondedto his letter. Walsingham's motive wasto force Elizabeth's hand, since he

concluded that the only way topersuade her to heed her councillors'advice was to make it appear Maryhad agreed to her English cousin'sassassination. The reason Elizabethwas reluctant to approve regicide wasthat she, like other rulers, believedthat monarchs were God's lieutenantson earth with special destinies to fulfilland were responsible only to God fortheir actions. A monarch's publicexecution would challenge the validity

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. His defiance of Elizabeth led to his execution in 1601.

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of the political hierarchy and makeother sovereigns' lives vulnerable at atime when Protestant preachers werewarning that God would sendambassadors to punish monarchs whodisobeyed His law, as they defined it.Meanwhile, Elizabeth justified herleniency on the basis that she followeda woman's code of honouremphasising mercy rather than justice.

Calling Mary a murderess,Elizabeth appointed a commission totry her. After her conviction,Parliament asked Elizabeth twice forMary's execution, agreeing with thecommissioners' recommendation ofthe death penalty for her. As is wellknown, Elizabeth reluctantly signedthe death warrant; the privy councilordered it delivered without herknowledge, and Mary was beheaded.Would Elizabeth's father have delayedso long? Probably not, and some ofElizabeth's councillors believed shewas too soft, that is feminine, inmatters concerning her cousin.

Afterwards, Burghley began toworry about Elizabeth's willingness towield her regal powers. Paul E. J.Hammer has pointed out that, as afemale monarch, Elizabeth's on-going'great fear' was that her greatest malesubjects would unite against her andattempt to control crown policies, asthey actually did when engineeringMary's execution. Elizabeth respondedto their success in 1587, according toBurghley, with threats to use herprerogative to execute those involvedin her cousin's death. In a letter to ananonymous correspondent, Burghleymade the following genderedstatement about Elizabeth's decisionto seek legal advice concerning herprerogative:

I would be loath to see a womanof such wisdom as she is, to bewrongly advised, for fear, andmen shall be otherwise punishedthan law may warrant, with anopinion gotten from the judgesthat her prerogative is above thelaw.

As in Gnndal's letter, Burghley

referred to her as a woman, albeit awise one, and not as the queen.

The Role of GenderBy the end of Elizabeth's reign, hadher success as queen regnantsignificantly changed the culturalattitudes about a woman ruler? Theanswer is no, since her status wasviewed as an exception to theappropriate practice. Later, after theStuart succession, some writers didrecall her governance with nostalgia.In the mid-1590s, however, as mosthistorians agree, the factional politicsemerging at the aged queen's courtsomewhat decreased her powers. Oneof the factions was led by RobertDevereux, second earl of Essex, andthe other by Burghley, who hadgained a dominant political position,and by his son Robert Cecil, who iswell known for describing Elizabeth as'more than a man and in truthsomewhat less than a woman'.Hammer has argued that the twofactions were struggling for control ofcrown policies, as well as patronage.Angered by Elizabeth's habit ofdelaying difficult decisions, as well asby Burghley's dominance, Essexreferred privately to her as the 'Juno tohis Aeneas', meaning she 'embodied aperverse female opposition' to him,the popular military leader. Essex alsowas willing 'to act behind her back', adefiance leading to his execution in1601. After Elizabeth's death, thereformed preacher Henry Hookewelcomed James I as king with thecomment: the 'elect might hope thatwhat was not possible for a woman toeffect, a man should be both able andindustrious to perform'.

These incidents indicate thatgender was a major issue in Elizabeth'sreign. Most of her councillors were notas directly critical as her relatives,Knollys and Hunsdon, but many, likeEssex, demonstrated impatience withthe aged queen's governance. It is alsotrue that the myriad problems arisingfrom religious controversies,Elizabeth's single status, Mary

Stewart's captivity and factionalpolitics were extremely difficult toresolve. For the most part, the queen'stactic of delaying decisions aboutthem was probably politically wiserthan accepting her male councillors''solutions'.

Further ReadingMargaret Christian, 'Elizabeth,Preachers and the Government ofWomen: Defining and Correcting aQueen', Sixteenth Century Journal 24no. 3(1991), pp. 561-76Paul E. J. Hammer, 'Patronage atCourt: faction and the earl of Essex', inJohn Guy {ed) The Reign of Elizabeth I:Court and Culture in the Last Decade(Cambridge University Press, 1995)Norman Jones, The Birth of theElizabethan Age: England in the 1560s{Blackwell, 1993)Wallace I MacCaffrey, 'Knollys, SirFrancis' and 'Carey, Henry, first BaronHunsdon', Oxford Dictionary ofNational BiographyLeah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller andMary Beth Rose (eds), Elizabeth I:Collected Works (University ofChicago Press, 2000)A. N. McLaren, Political Culture in theReign of Elizabeth I: Queen andCommonweatth, 1558-1585(Cambridge University Press, 1999)Natalie Mears, Queenship arfd PoliticalDiscourse in the Elizabethan Reatms(Cambridge University Press, 2005)Retha Warnicke, Mary Queer) of Scots(Routiedge, 2006)

Issues to Debate• What common Tudorassumptions about women werethought relevant to Elizabeth?• How did these assumptionsaffect the ways in which the queenwas treated by her councillors?• To what extent were Elizabeth'sdecisions on key issues more sensibleand practical than those of her maleadvisors?

Retha Warnicke is Professor of History at

Arizona State University.

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