Elizabeth I

Collected Works

Elizabeth I, Leah S. Marcus,Janel Mueller,Mary Beth Rose

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9780226504711
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

This long-awaited and masterfully edited volume contains nearly all of the writings of Queen Elizabeth I: the clumsy letters of childhood, the early speeches of a fledgling queen, and the prayers and poetry of the monarch's later years. The first collection of its kind, Elizabeth I reveals brilliance on two counts: that of the Queen, a dazzling writer and a leading intellect of the English Renaissance, and that of the editors, whose copious annotations make the book not only essential to scholars but accessible to general readers as well."This collection shines a light onto the character and experience of one of the most interesting of monarchs.... We are likely never to get a closer or clearer look at her. An intriguing and intense portrait of a woman who figures so importantly in the birth of our modern world."— Publishers Weekly "An admirable scholarly edition of the queen's literary output.... This anthology will excite scholars of Elizabethan history, but there is something here for all of us who revel in the English language."—John Cooper, Washington Times "Substantial, scholarly, but accessible.... An invaluable work of reference."—Patrick Collinson, London Review of Books "In a single extraordinary volume... Marcus and her coeditors have collected the Virgin Queen's letters, speeches, poems and prayers.... An impressive, heavily footnoted volume."— Library Journal "This excellent anthology of [Elizabeth's] speeches, poems, prayers and letters demonstrates her virtuosity and afford the reader a penetrating insight into her 'wiles and understandings.'"—Anne Somerset, New Statesman "Here then is the only trustworthy collection of the various genres of Elizabeth's writings.... A fine edition which will be indispensable to all those interested in Elizabeth I and her reign."—Susan Doran, History "In the torrent of words about her, the queen's own words have been hard to find.... [This] volume is a major scholarly achievement that makes Elizabeth's mind much more accessible than before.... A veritable feast of material in different genres."—David Norbrook, The New Republic

NOTES

LETTER 1

1. Source: BL, MS Cotton Otho C.X., fol. 235r; in Italian, in the princess’s fine italic hand, damaged by the fire of 1742 in Sir Robert Cotton’s library. (For original Italian, see ACFLO, part 1.) The copy in the Bodleian (MS Smith 68, art. 49) is a poor transcript overall but was copied before the fire and has been used to supply portions of the letter destroyed in 1742. Queen Katherine Parr (ca. 1512–1548) was the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII.

2. Elizabeth’s language of exile has frequently been read literally, with the implication that Henry had banished her from court. Here, however, since she anticipates a speedy reunion, she probably refers to the period of the regency (July-September 1544), during which Henry was on military campaign in France, Katherine and the privy councillors assigned to her were residing at Hampton Court, and Elizabeth herself was at Saint James Palace.

LETTER 2

1. Source: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Cherry 36, fols. 2r–4v; in Elizabeth’s hand, on parchment, with embellished embroidered cover that is also her work. (For original-spelling version, see ACFLO, part 1.) Queen Katherine was to become noted for her strong support of Protestantism. The most plausible date for her conversion is the summer of 1544, when as regent she consulted daily with Thomas Cranmer under the absent Henry’s explicit instructions. The Miroir of Marguerite d’Angoulême (1492–1549), queen of Navarre—the freethinking sister of King Francis I of France—was first published in 1531. Marguerite had been an acquaintance of Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, beginning around 1516; indeed, in making her translation, Elizabeth may have used the 1533 edition of Marguerite’s book that was in her mother’s library. Elizabeth’s translation, amended by the humanist John Bale, was published in Marburg (1548) and went through several Continental editions. For the full text of Elizabeth’s translation and further information, see Marc Shell, ed., Elizabeth’s Glass (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).

2. affectuous earnest, ardent.

3. the philosopher standard form of reference to Aristotle, but the saying was proverbial. See, for example, Ovid Tristia, bk. 5, poem 12, lines 21–22: “My wit, injured by long rusting, is dull, much inferior to what it was before.”

4. portion … lent me allusion to the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30).

5. contempling contemplating.

6. less lest.

7. Ashridge one of the crown manors, located in Buckinghamshire.

LETTER 3

1. Source: BL, MS Royal 7.D.X., sigs. 2r–5r; translated from Latin. (For the original Latin, see ACFLO, part 1.) This New Year’s gift for her father is in Elizabeth’s youthful italic hand, on parchment, with an embroidered cover that is also her handiwork. It is not clear whether or not Elizabeth knew Katherine’s source: the third book of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi in Richard Whitford’s English translation (printed ca. 1530). This is Elizabeth’s only known letter to Henry VIII.

2. Pope Leo X had given Henry VIII the title of “Defensor fidei” after he published his Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (1521), a tract vindicating the seven Roman Catholic sacraments against Luther’s then reduction of them to three: baptism, penance, and holy communion.

3. things done The Latin phrase is res gestae, by the sixteenth century a standard phrase for the subject matter of historical writing. She implies that the soul, too, has the stuff of which history is made.

4. Hertford Castle in Hertfordshire that was used by the Tudors as a residence for the royal children.

LETTER 4

1. Source: Edinburgh, Scottish Record Office, National Archives of Scotland, MS NAS RH 13/78, fols. 1r–7r; in French, in Elizabeth’s youthful italic hand, on parchment. (For original French, see ACFLO, part 1.) This New Year’s gift for her stepmother is a companion volume to that containing our Letter 3 to King Henry and has an elaborate embroidered cover featuring the intertwined initials HR and KP, which is also Elizabeth’s handiwork.

2. Galileo Galilei makes the same point almost a century later in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. He and Elizabeth may have had a common source that we have not uncovered. See his Dialogue, 2nd ed., trans. Stillman Drake (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 105.

LETTER 5

1. Source: BL, MS Harley 6986, art. 11, fol. 19r in Elizabeth’s hand, in Latin. (For original Latin, see ACFLO, part 1.) The year to which this letter is assigned here follows the BL Harleian Catalogue. King Henry VIII had died in early 1547; his only legitimate son, Edward the “Boy King,” succeeded him at the age of nine.

2. virtues in Latin, virtutes, which could mean either “virtues” or “powers.”

3. Enfield a no longer extant crown manor in the county of Middlesex, north of London.

LETTER 6

1. Source: BL, MS Harley 6986, art. 15, fol. 21r; in Elizabeth’s hand, in Latin. (For original Latin, see ACFLO, part 1.) Assignment of the year here follows BL Harleian Catalogue.

2. Pindar Pythian Ode VIII, last two lines.

3. Homer Iliad XIV.446–47.

LETTER 7

1. Source: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Additional C. 92 (formerly MS Arch. F. c. 8); in Elizabeth’s hand; formerly pasted onto the flyleaf of King James I’s works in a MS that he himself presented to the Bodleian. (For Elizabeth’s original Latin version, see ACFLO, part 1.) Assignment of the year is conjectural. The Rev. Dr. Giles—in Whole Works of Roger Ascham (London: John Russell Smith, 1865), vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 276—prints this letter among Ascham’s compositions, following the precedent of William Elstob’s edition, Rogeri Aschami epistolarum libri quatuor (Oxford: Henry Clements, 1703), pp. 380–81. However, both because this letter exists uniquely in Elizabeth’s handwriting (a fact which Elstob records without comment) and because it does not appear in any of the first four English editions of Ascham’s Familiarum epistolarum libri tres (London: Francis Coldock, 1576, 1578, 1581, and 1590) (STC 826–29) or m the three early seventeenth-century Continental editions, we find no reason to deny its authorship to Elizabeth, although Ascham may well have had a hand in its composition.

2. Cicero De officiis II.18, citing Ennius Scenica no. 24: “nam praeclare Ennius, bene facta male locata malefacta arbitrer.”

3. kólakas . . . kórakas “flatterers . . . crows” (Greek words embedded within the Latin letter, yielding a pun).

LETTER 8

1. Source: PRO, State Papers Domestic, Edward VI 10/2, fol. 8...