For Thyne Is The Kingdom

..."Nature had made women 'weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish; and experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel or regiment'"..."women were urged to keep silent in the presence of men, and to show unfailing obedience to husbands and fathers,..."1

So how could a woman transcend the prevailing 'wisdom' of her era a nd rule a country for over forty years? The 16th century monarch was besieged by threats both from within and without his kingdom, but his confidence lay in his divine right to rule and support from the pope by virtue of his sex. Elizabeth I stood alone. Though she was far from perfect, she was a brilliant leader whose long-sighted vision and gift for sustainable strategies preserved England from the depth of turmoil that plagued other countries during the Counter-Reformation. Upon accession, she acknowledged her "sexly weakness"2, declared herself "God's creature...by His permission a body politic, to govern," 3. and set about wrapping herself and England with the spirit of the Reformation, (as symbolized by the collar). 4 She ignored Pope Pius V's excommunication Bull 5, and ultimately chose not to diminish her power by sharing her throne with a king. She rose above corporeal desire, and dismissed notions that if a woman was "deprived of coitus", she would suffer from "a poor complexion and an unsteady mind by the ascent of 'naughty vapour' to the brain." 6

1 Anne Somerset, Elizabeth I (Anchor Books, 1991) p. 59 (citations: Carroll Camden, The Elizabethan Woman, (1952) p. 28; John Knox, Works , ed. David Laing, (Edinburgh, 1848) IV, p. 374; Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara F. McManus, Half Humankind. Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England 1540 - 1640 (Chicago, 1985) pp. 51 54)

2 Ibid. (citations: J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments (1953), I, 107; Public Record Office State Papers78/23 fo. 165; J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, (1860) II, 199; J.P. Hodges & Adam Fox (eds.), A Book of Devotions composed by Her Majesty Elizabeth R., (Gerrards Cross, 1977) p. 19)

3 Ibid. (citation: Anthony James Froude, History of England (1893)VI, pp. 15 - 16)

4 The collar is made from the text of the Book of Common Prayer (1559).

5 Somerset 245: "On 25 February 1570 (Pope Pius V) issued the Bull Regnans in Excelsis, depriving "Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England, the servant of wickedness" of her throne, and declaring that henceforth her subjects were absolved of their allegiance to her." (citation: Claire Cross, The Royal Supremacy in the Elizabethan Church (1969) pp. 152-53)

6 Ibid. 90 (citations: Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series I, p. 331; Calendar of Letters and State Papers preserved in archives in Simancas, ed. Pascual de Gayangos et al, XI, p. 289; Richard L. Greaves, Society and Religion in Elizabethan England, (Minneapolis, 1981) p. 226; William Murdin, A collection of state papers relating to affairs in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1571 - 96 (1759) p. 338)