“I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king,” Elizabeth I is said to have proclaimed in a moment of national crisis in 1588, as she faced the possibility of a Spanish invasion.¹ Whether or not this is an accurate transcription of what she said at Tilbury, it is hardly surprising that it has passed into tradition as one of the most famous of her speeches, since it so neatly encapsulates the struggles and contradictions for a woman in a position of power. Elizabeth had from her earliest...

In 1558 the Scots reformer John Knox published hisFirst Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Knox vehemently described female rule as blasphemous against God, given the essential quality of woman’s nature. “I am assured that God hath reveled to some in this our age, that it is more then a monstre in nature that a Woman shall reigne and have empire above a Man…. howe abominable, odious, and detestable is all such usurped authoritie.” Knox argued that God not only ordained that women were barred from authority, but given their weaknesses they would be incapable...

In 1567 the Spanish Ambassador, Guzman de Silva, wrote to his master Philip II that, “the hatred that this Queen has of marriage is most strange. They presented a comedy before her last night until nearly one in the morning, which ended in a marriage, and the Queen, as she told me herself, expressed her dislike of the woman’s part.” At about the same time Elizabeth also held a masque for de Silva performed by gentlemen all dressed in black and white. Elizabeth said of the costumes, “those are my colors.” This time de Silva apparently did not catch the...

Elizabeth’s contemporary, Henry IV of France, was known for his sense of humor. Henry, originally a Protestant, had converted to Catholicism in 1593 when it was clear that the French country as a whole would never accept a Protestant king. On that occasion he claimed that “Paris is well worth a mass.” In the 1590s Henry is supposed to have joked to a Scottish marquis that there were three questions that would never be resolved: the first was, how valiant was Maurice of Orange (a leader in the Dutch resistance against the Spanish) who had never fought a battle; the...

In January 1575 Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, learned from the dean of Westminster of a young man named William Cartwright. Cartwright, a “vain young stripling,” claimed in a frenzy that he was the rightful heir to the lands of the realm and that Elizabeth kept him from his proper place. Cartwright was temporarily lodged in the gatehouse at Westminster until it could be decided what should be done about him. While some of Parker’s colleagues wanted to send him to the Privy Council, Parker believed this to be unnecessary. Describing Cartwright in a letter to Burghley as one whose...

Probably the most vital question for Elizabeth at her accession and throughout her reign was whether as a woman she could rule successfully.¹ This question echoes through the pressure on her to marry, through her religious role as sacred monarch, in the rumors around her sexuality, and in the belief in male pretenders. At the beginning of her reign Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, argued against Elizabeth becoming Supreme Head of the Church because she was “a woman by birthe and nature.” Yet his speech had another component that in many ways undermined this argument; he also stated that by...

On March 20, 1601 John Garnons, who had previously been a justice of the peace, wrote to Sir Robert Cecil in concern over some dreams that John Notte, “a gentleman well affected in religion,” reported that his wife Joan had shared with him.¹ Notte assured Garnons he was “importunately moved by my wife” to deliver these notes to Garnons. Joan Notte was Garnons’s godchild, which may be why they decided to use him as their intermediary. The Nottes had recorded not only Joan’s dreams but also conversations, mostly about Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, she had overheard over the...