619. Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen (Part 4)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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O Lord, almighty and everlasting God, I give thee most hearty thanks that thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to behold this joyful day. And I acknowledge that thou hast dealt as wonderfully and as mercifully with me as thou didst with thy true and faithful servant Daniel, thy prophet, whom thou deliverest out of the den from the cruelty of the greedy and raging lions. Even so was I overwhelmed and only by thee delivered. To thee only be thanks, honour and praise for ever. Amen. So that was Queen Elizabeth I, Gloriana, the Virgin Queen, on the 14th of January, 1559, two months into her reign, two months after her sister, Bloody Mary, has died, leaving her as the heir. And she is speaking to
crowd who've gathered outside the Tower of London so this is the place where her mother had been imprisoned and had died where she had been imprisoned and had feared for her own life and where she is now staying in the royal apartments waiting for her coronation and Tom You suggest in your notes that she's thinking about Daniel in the lion's den because Tower of London has a menagerie, an exciting sort of proto-zoo. Yeah, with lions. And she's been thinking about lions because of that.
That's nice. Well, I'd just throw that out as a possibility. And it's a great speech. And, you know, she is alluding to all the traumas and dangers that you were mentioning. And she's still only 25, but she has pulled through. And I think that by casting herself as Daniel saved from the lion's den, I mean, it's an absolutely brilliant, humble brag. Because on the one hand, she's saying, oh, it's only thanks to God that I've survived. But of course, if she is like Daniel, who was a prophet, who was spared by God to work out his purposes, then it suggests that Elizabeth also has been spared deliberately by God and has great purposes ahead of her. So to quote Helen Castor, who has a brilliant short biography of Elizabeth,
about this speech, it was a rhetoric and reality fused into a performance that was at once immediately legible and utterly unreadable. So that sense in which Elizabeth is brilliant at speaking, at coming up with phrases and images and ideas that resonate with her subjects, but at the same time keeping her own thoughts and personality completely veiled. Classic display of Elizabethan rhetoric.
And right from the start, she proves an absolute master at something that her father, Henry VIII, had been brilliant at, which is the theatre of monarchy, the pageantry, the spectacle. Because she's carried, isn't she, from the tower in a litter to Westminster. And there are pageants and kind of tableau all along the way. And the public are lying in the streets. They absolutely love it. Anyone familiar with the reign of Henry VIII will know that he loved all this and he was brilliant at it. And so is she.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–15:03
2
How was Elizabeth I finally crowned Queen of England?
15:03–22:50
3
What was the significance of Elizabeth I's speech during her coronation?
22:50–32:45
4
What challenges did Elizabeth I face in her early reign?
32:45–47:36
5
How did Elizabeth I navigate her religious policies amidst political pressures?
47:36–1:07:31
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Rest Is History
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