Elizabeth I or the reason of state (part 1)

Before being crowned Queen of England, Elizabeth I was long considered a bastard of King Henry VIII.

In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of history", Jean des Cars tells you how this original humiliation influenced the sovereign's political career. 

We are in London, February 8, 1587. On the Queen's desk, many papers are waiting to be read, approved or returned for further investigation.

For three months, Elizabeth I has been pretending not to see a document much more important than the others.

She pushes it away, hides it but doesn't stop thinking about it.

Day and night.

This document is a letter.

What is called a warrant, in other words an execution order.

Within reach of his eyes and of his hand, he is only waiting for his signature.

For twelve weeks, the sovereign has hesitated.

It must be said that the order targets its own cousin, also queen in addition: Marie Stuart.

As a Protestant leader of England, can she take the risk of having another crowned head beheaded, a Catholic, to whom she is second-degree related?

What will be the reactions of France and Spain, also Catholic?

Should she be relentless or lenient?

Isn't it unwise to prove to Parliament, to the people and to the whole kingdom that one can legally cut off a queen's head?

Isn't it foolish to have the one she has kept imprisoned for nineteen years, accused, without real evidence, of conspiracy, executed?

Can she not escape the curse of her bloodthirsty progenitor, King Henry VIII?

All these questions jostle in Elizabeth's head.

There doesn't seem to be a "right" solution.

From then on, her attitude throughout this affair will be a monument of hypocrisy, worthy of the characters in Shakespeare's theater, whom she admires.

She finally signs the warrant, sending to death the indomitable and turbulent Queen of Scots, also briefly Queen of France.  

When she was executed, Elizabeth I imposed the ordeal of endless waiting for death.

After three months of mental torture, Marie Stuart dies under the executioner's ax in Fotheringhay prison.

Petrified by her gesture and the horrific details of the execution, Elizabeth will dare to claim that she initialed this document among others, without really reading it, and that she was not aware of sending her relative to the executioner on February 8, 1587!

But deep down inside, he has to face the hideous need to cut off the head of a woman of the same condition as her.

She has become a regicidal queen!

Her choice is guided by the same necessity that has carried her all her life: the reason of state.

The humiliation of being a bastard

If there is one word that Elizabeth hears throughout her childhood, and which will alter her life, it is that of "bastard".

A humiliating slap, an infamous insult that will not prevent this daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, from hoisting her kingdom to the first rank of European powers at the end of the 16th century. 

The king's passion for Anne Boleyn prompts him to ask the Pope to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The procedure will last from 1527 to 1533, but Rome refuses to dissolve the marriage.

No matter Henry VIII, he had no time to waste: on January 25, 1533, Anne Boleyn, pregnant, secretly became his second wife.

The Archbishop of Canterbury cancels the first marriage, and the king is now supreme head of the Church of England.

The break with Rome is consumed for the beautiful eyes of Anne Boleyn: it is a turning point in European history. 

Eight months later, on September 7, 1533, the young woman gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, half-sister of Marie Tudor, who was seventeen years her senior and herself daughter of Catherine of Aragon.

What makes Elizabeth a bastard is that for Catholics her mother was only united to Henry VIII by virtue of an illegitimate dissolution followed by remarriage not admitted by Rome.

The family conflict only reflects the religious conflict that divides England.

For eleven years, for both Catholics and Protestants, Elizabeth suffered from being this bastard child, therefore theoretically having no right of succession to the crown.

She suffered a permanent contempt, until 1544. On that date, a statute of parliament, desired by the king, restored her rights to the throne, placing her in third position in the order of succession to her father.

When Henry VIII died in 1547, his only son succeeded him under the name of Edward VI.

He was born in 1537 to Jane Seymour, the king's third wife.

He is only 10 years old.

When he died in 1553, Marie Tudor became Queen of England.

She is of a strict and uncompromising Catholicism, inherited from her mother, the Spanish Catherine of Aragon.

His intolerance earned him, after the execution of three hundred reformed, the nickname "Bloody Mary" ("Mary the bloody").

She accuses, without any proof, her half-sister Elizabeth of a Protestant plot, and has her locked up in the sinister Tower of London.

Isolated, Elizabeth prepares her revenge 

Marie Tudor thinks she's annihilating her half-sister.

She is wrong !

Very intelligent, not at all downcast, Elizabeth takes advantage of her detention to continue to cultivate herself.

She immerses herself, with relish, in the study and improvement of her knowledge.

Thus, she learns Italian, French, Spanish and a little German.

Her mastery will allow her, later, to be in direct contact with foreign ambassadors and even, having become queen, to do without intermediaries. 

From her mother, she inherited the art of lying.

From her father, whose brutality did not exclude a taste for refinement, she had already received a very careful education, familiar with Greek and Latin authors thanks to the teaching of renowned humanists from Cambridge.

She writes and speaks both Greek and Latin.

Elizabeth enjoys dancing and will attach great importance to court music.

Thus, although removed from power and imprisoned, then released but away from the court, she perfected the art of self-control, concealment and maneuvering with caution.

A political education inspired by Florence.

By making herself forget, Elizabeth is getting ready ... 

Marie Tudor's other mistake is not to have felt that the newly promoted English middle class refuses to return to the obedience of the Roman Catholic Church, which has become a minority.

Likewise, the merchants could not bear to be subjected to commercial rivals at the orders of Madrid and the Flemings since Flanders was then under Spanish occupation.

Marie Tudor, austere 36-year-old queen, agrees to marry the King of Spain Philippe II, son and successor of Charles Quint.

She does not realize that this Catholic marriage reinforces the contempt of the people of England for her.

Abandoned by her husband, not having been able to carry a pregnancy to term, she died at the age of 42, after five years of reign, obliged to appoint her half-sister Elizabeth to succeed her, in accordance with the will of Henry VIII, the real one. reformer of the religion of the English. 

Elizabeth's advent relieves England 

Proclaimed queen on November 17, 1558, Elizabeth ascended to the throne at 25.

His attachment to Protestantism will inspire all his politics, both interior and exterior.

Sacred in 1559, it reigns and governs, which is a political revolution, and foreshadows what will be the choice of Louis XIV.

To the Machiavellianism of her father and her unscrupulous boldness, Elizabeth adds her enlightened judgment on men and events.

Pragmatic like Henry VIII, she knows the advantage of an autocephalous church which reflects a national feeling.

Even if she is sometimes skeptical, she sees Protestantism as the leaven of vigorous patriotism.

To the great satisfaction of Parliament and the people who adopted Anglicanism, she refused the incredible offer of marriage from Philip II, the very distant widower of Marie Tudor.

This political gesture of the queen is very appreciated, especially as the approach of the son of Charles V is considered in very bad taste.

In her Council, the queen surrounds herself with experienced men, often from the bourgeoisie.

Thus, William Cecil, valuable collaborator for nearly forty years, future Lord Burghley, will be one of the greatest English politicians of the sixteenth century.

Elizabeth meets her council almost every day.

It deals with both financial and religious issues, the important diplomatic correspondence that the Queen examines to the word, but also complaints from individuals against a failure of the administration.

From the most important files to the most modest procedures, the sovereign embodies English absolutism, while always remaining accessible.

After the bloody reign of her half-sister Marie Tudor, Elizabeth is careful to act with caution.

She is wary of the most radical tendency of Protestantism which challenges the authority of the bishops.

This tendency is steeped in Calvinism and appreciated by those who will be called the "puritans".

But she is also wary of the Catholic minority, which has significant support in Scotland.

In reality, the second daughter of Henry VIII is looking for an intermediate path.

She wants to be conciliatory in authority.

The Queen organizes the Anglican Church

In 1559, proceeding with great caution and with the help of Parliament, Elizabeth re-established the Act of Supremacy drawn up by her father but which Mary Tudor had repealed.

This "oath of supremacy", which confirms the schism with the papacy, must be taken, not only by clergymen, but also by all members of Parliament and officials. 

Wanting to maintain an indispensable peace, the queen excludes from what we would today call the public service both strict Catholics and radical Protestants.

The national church passes under the supreme authority of the monarch, it is therefore independent of Rome. 

The sovereign exercises more civil power than spiritual authority.

In order not to irritate Catholics too much, she is satisfied with the title of "Supreme Regulator of the Church" rather than that of "Supreme Head of the Church" which her father had given herself.

The oath of supremacy will be in use for just over three centuries, until the mid-reign of Queen Victoria, around 1870.

Elizabeth also had Parliament published a watered-down version of the Prayer Book, mitigating formulas that could offend Catholics, who were always ready to react.

The search for spiritual balance is constant with her. 

But from October 10 to 17, 1562, an epidemic of smallpox raised fears for his life.

Would this be a punishment?

The rumor spreads then goes out: the queen escapes the disease!

In 1563, she promulgated the 39 articles of a new law adopted by Parliament.

These arrangements reflect a middle ground between Roman Catholicism and Geneva Calvinism.

There is no fanaticism in Elizabeth.

By replacing the use of Latin, which is familiar to her, by that of English, she acts in politics: she knows that a language is an irreplaceable leaven of union.

Twenty four years earlier, the King of France, François I, had, by ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, imposed the use of French to unify his kingdom.

The Anglican Church will only admit two sacraments, Baptism and Communion, while Purgatory and the worship of saints are no longer held.

But for Rome, there is more serious: the Councils are no longer infallible and the celibacy of priests is abandoned.

The reaction does not take long: the Queen of England will be excommunicated in 1570, as her father had been.

Is Elizabeth "the Virgin Queen"? 

After the incredible and shocking marriage proposal of Philip II, Elizabeth I rejected several suitors, including the Archduke Charles of Habsburg, uncle of the same king of Spain.

It also declines the candidacy of the Duke of Alençon, brother of the King of France Henri III who has no children, therefore potential heir to the throne of the Valois.

The Duke stayed in London from August 17 to 29, 1579, but the heart of Her Majesty the Queen did not beat faster.

It is also possible that he found her too old to have an heir or an heiress - she is 46 years old, he 24. As for the sovereign, one is hardly dazzled by the youngest but also the ugliest. children of Henri II and Catherine de Medici.

His nose, huge and swollen, is unattractive.

Besides, the prince is fragile.

Already ill, he died of tuberculosis five years after his stay in London.

Elizabeth is therefore without a man.

We do not know her as an official lover and when we talk to her about marriage to ensure her descendants, she does not want to hear anything.

It is unlikely, however, that she remained a virgin, as she defiantly claimed.

She is content with connections: the number, youth and beauty of her favorites suggests that they are not indifferent to her.

But none dominate it, neither intellectually nor politically. 

Its supposed virginity will inspire the English colonists who landed in America in 1585: the first English colony will be baptized by Sir Walter Raleigh "Virginia", "Virginia" ... Two centuries later, it will be the cradle of American independence.

We can understand royal celibacy: it must be said that in the marriage register, the example of his father is not the most recommendable.

He had probably traumatized her!

Elizabeth I only wanted to unite with England.

She will only be married with power.

Bibliographic resources:

Michel Duchein,

(Fayard, 2001).

Kenneth Morgan,

(Armand Colin, 1985)

Jean des Cars,

(Perrin, 2012)

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"At the heart of history" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast

Author and presentation: Jean des Cars

Production, distribution and edition: Timothée Magot

Director: Matthieu Blaise

Graphics: Karelle Villais