Elizabeth I: A Difficult Job For an Aging, Single Woman

Much is known about Elizabeth I's father, Henry VIII, and his bid to ensure his succession -- which led to the existence of the first three of his six marriages (for a full account of his prolific marital career, see this great hub by LondonGirl). And much is known about the next three monarchs: all three of Henry's legitimate children attained the throne, although the reigns of Edward VI and Mary were brief. Elizabeth, however, proved to be as stubborn and intractable as her father, ruling for forty-five years and restoring the realm to a stability that lasted beyond her death.

Her strategy was just a little different.

The loneliness and neglect of her early childhood (having been declared illegitimate by her own father) only augmented the completeness of her education. Being closer in age to her younger brother Edward, she shared his early schooling, which means she was speaking French, Latin, Italian, and some Spanish before she was eleven and knew enough Greek to write prayers in that language.

Her speeches to Parliament are famous for the determined manner in which she presented her created persona of virgin queen and her decision not to marry. But she also wrote prayers, poems, and translated Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Her academic accomplishments sharpened her mind and gave her a politic understanding of language beyond most of her subjects.

But none of this could have been easy. Here's a poem from her later years, that is at once both a formal nod to the advancing years despoiling her strength and beauty, and a more intimate betrayal of that creeping fear otherwise known as old age.

Now leave and let me rest. Dame Pleasure, be content-

Go choose among the best; my doting days be spent.
By sundry signs I see thy proffers are but vain,
And wisdom warneth me that pleasure asketh pain;
And Nature that doth know how time her steps doth try,
Gives place to painful woe, and bids me learn to die.

Since all fair earthly things, soon ripe, will soon be rot
And all that pleasant springs, soon withered, soon forgot,
And youth that yields men joys that wanton lust desires
In age repents the toys that reckless youth requires.
All which delights I leave to such as folly trains
By pleasures to deceive, till they do feel the pains.

And from vain pleasures past I fly, and fain would know
The happy life at last whereto I hope to go.
For words or wise reports ne yet examples gone
'Gan bridle youthful sports, till age came stealing on.
The pleasant courtly games that I do pleasure in,
My elder years now shames such folly to begin.

And all the fancies strange that fond delight brought forth
I do intend to change, and count them nothing worth.
For I by proffers vain am taught to know the skill
What might have been forborne in my young reckless will;
By which good proof I fleet from will to wit again,

In hope to set my feet in surety to remain.

From folly to wisdom, from youthful sports to wise reports -- the several iterations of growth from young woman to "elder years" are not redundant: there is a natural progression of time, of superficial traces, of assessment of her own character.

The movement of awareness "from will to wit" is finally at once both a recognition of the realities of old age and a resolution to "set her feet" in a surety of moral rectitude -- and there to remain (for ever and ever, amen).

"Remain" is deliberately the last word; the changes from folly to wisdom are past, and she now faces an eternity, after death, unchanging.

The internal rhymes help the poem turn on itself in a spiral of sense that moves like the treadle on a loom -- the mechanics are visible, creaking, relentless, just like time. So each line has a cesura, drawing emphasis to certain words:

And from vain pleasures past             I fly, and fain would know

The happy life at last                             whereto I hope to go.

It sounds simplistic, until you realize who is speaking, and whereto she hopes to go.  Not one Christian reference anywhere in the poem; she was circumspect with her Anglicanism and after what she regarded as necessary punishments for the many atrocities committed against the Church during Mary's reign, she followed a widely received "live and let live" policy in religious matters.

Elizabeth died in 1603 and had wisely chosen James VI of Scotland to succeed her. He was crowned James I of England, a Stuart king after the long Tudor dynasty, and ruled until 1625. Here are links to her speech to her last Parliament, the so-called "Golden Speech," and the text.