What Churchill Says About Queen Elizabeth

Sir Winston Churchill devotes himself these days to writing... Before him is a large work he is on the point of finishing, in which he reviews the history of the British people in detail, and takes up the succession of the royal family, the events that followed one upon another in its life, and the plots and scandals concealed within its palaces... In this chapter, the old statesman speaks of the life of Queen Elizabeth, who ascended the throne in her twenty-fifth spring, after her sister Mary I, in October of the year 1558...

The new queen was not versed in the ways of politics, nor expert in the affairs of government, but she combined some of the traditions rooted in her family; she mounted the throne as the daughter of Henry VIII, and brought with her all his qualities — eloquence, pride, beauty and elegance, firmness in calamities, and a sharp temper.

The young queen followed the path of her forebears: she studied music, dancing, and archery, and she commanded six languages. Like them, too, she loved moving from place to place, scarcely settling in any one palace — and this goes back to the life of unease in which she grew up from her earliest youth, for she had been accounted illegitimate, and on that ground was banished from the court, and she learned a harsh lesson that made her exceedingly wary and deeply reflective. Her period of rule demanded firmness, knowledge, and far-sightedness in affairs at home and abroad, and she lacked nothing of all this; she had, besides, an extraordinary gift for choosing her intimates and her agents.

She would pass through violent crises of temper — merry and boisterous at one moment, raging at another, hurling her lava in the face of whoever's unhappy fortune led him across her path. It was nothing strange in her to slap her treasurer, or to fling her shoe in the face of her secretary. She was free and unconstrained in her relations with the other sex, until it was said of her that on some of her days she was stronger than men, and when she weakened she became as the feeblest of women. She knew, by instinct, how to draw others to her, even when that called her to flirtation; she distributed her love among a number of men — and the strangest thing of all is that her subjects looked upon her with a gaze of worship and sanctification.

Elizabeth embraced the Protestant creed, and so did the men of her court; she proclaimed the sovereignty of the monarch over the Church, and then managed, despite the weakness of her fleet, to quell the religious revolts that arose in Scotland. There remained, accordingly, the matter of her marriage... The Council approached the Virgin Queen with this request, but she refused, her excuse being that she would not sacrifice the political interest for the sake of individual desires...

And Mary Stuart returned, Queen of Scotland — and this was cause enough to disquiet Elizabeth, especially as the woman was adorned with lofty qualities, had prowess in the field of rule and practice in the affairs of politics, having been the wife of King Francis II. Elizabeth's fear melted away when Mary married her cousin Henry Stuart.

But Mary's remaining alive was a standing threat to Elizabeth... Revolts broke out again in the country, kindled by the Catholics at the prompting of the other European powers, Spain and France at their head; the Queen managed in the end to quell all these movements, even in Scotland, and proclaimed herself Queen of England without a rival.

In 1579 the Jesuit missionaries resumed their activity in England; they cared nothing for the troubles that stood in their way, and marched toward their goal with tremendous steadfastness, which compelled her to declare martial law; and in the latter days of her reign she put to death some three hundred, by burning. Nor did this lessen the plots that Mary, Queen of Scotland, went on contriving... Some of the nobles came forward with a new proposal calling for Mary's death; naturally Elizabeth did not consent to the shedding of royal blood, but she was persuaded in the end that the political interest required the death of Mary, who was executed on the charge of high treason.

On the eighth of February, in the year 1587, Mary appeared in a procession of her executioners, her body wrapped in a gown of black 'satin.' She walked through the hall with pride and unconcern, and when the chaplain of the court church asked her to change her faith, she lifted her head and answered him boldly: I am a Catholic, and in my faith I shall die. Then she took off the black satin cloak and flung it to her lady-in-waiting, who stood behind her weeping; and beneath it appeared a robe of crimson velvet... One of her ladies handed her a pair of gloves of the same color; and so the queen stood in her last moment, her body dyed deep red. Then she knelt, and the sword's edge passed once, and swept away her small head...

And when the news reached London, decorations were raised in the streets; and all the while, Elizabeth sat alone in her room... sobbing...