Elizabeth: A study in power & intellect

Paul Johnson

• 9780297767138

Samenvatting:

Was Queen Elizabeth I the beneficiary of the brilliant age which assumed her name? Or was she, rather, the central architect of its fortunes, skillfully managing state and society to allow the dynamism of her subjects to find its full expression?

This is the first full-length political biography of Elizabeth to appear for many resources of modern scholarship to relate Elizabeth’s character and beliefs to the history of her age. He portrays her as a liberal conservative, deeply committed to the hierarchical structure of society, and to the preservation of her inherited powers and the traditional procedures of government, but intellectually capable of grasping the need for timely concessions, and adjusting her policies accordingly. Elsewhere in Europe there was tyranny, political breakdown, or civil war. In England, Elizabeth maintained constitutional and religious balance, and held in equipoise violent forces which, in the half-century after her death, were to explode in the Great Rebellion.

She was an intellectual in politics, but one who worked not through ideas but by the systematic employment of her superb intellect on her fellow creatures. Confident in her powers, she never hesitated to use ministers of outstanding capacity, even when they disagreed with her on fundamental issues. Nor was she afraid to confront parliament on its own terrain of high-level debate and oratory. Her education made her a beneficiary of the Renaissance; the perils which encompassed her as a child and young woman left her prudent, reserved and clear-headed under stress; and her sex gave her valuable insights into the handling of men, and the needs of ordinary people.

But, beyond all this, she was a woman of considerable moral weight, highly consistent in her purposes, courageous in pursuing them. It was this moral authority which enabled her to master the crises of her last decade, when the disastrous war in Ireland, and rebellion and economic distress at home, threatened all the achievements of her reign. She had inherited a poor, dived and defeated nation; she bequeathed a glittering legacy to her successors.