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Claire | December 1, 2011
Apologies for not posting about Elizabeth I’s famous Golden Speech yesterday on its 410th anniversary, yesterday was just one of those days! You can find diarist Hayward Townshend’s version of the speech in our Speeches section under Resources – click here and it is an amazing speech. Elizabeth delivered it to the House of Commons
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Claire | October 8, 2010
The first poem I want to share with you was inscribed by Elizabeth I on the last leaf of her French psalter, which is in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Leah S Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose, editors of “Elizabeth I: Collected Works”, date this poem to 1565 because:- “The lightly embellished,
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Claire | October 5, 2010
What some people do not realise is that Elizabeth I was a very accomplished writer, something which could be attributed to her Humanist education but which was also a real gift. One of my favourite books is “Elizabeth I: Collected Works” which contains all of the letters, poems, prayers and speeches that Elizabeth wrote during
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Claire | August 27, 2010
While there are some excellent biographies and books out there on Elizabeth I, her reign and Elizabethan times, there’s nothing quite like going back to the primary sources. Secondary sources obviously have their use, particularly when they are written by historians and authors who have made good use of primary sources and have based their
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Claire | June 10, 2010
On this day in history, 10th June 1584, François, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, died at the age of 30 from a fever, possibly malaria. Why am I writing about him here, on a website dedicated to Elizabeth? Because he was one of Elizabeth’s suitors and the man she affectionately called her “frog”. François, Duke
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Claire | May 8, 2010
On the 8th May 1559, Queen Elizabeth I gave her approval to the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy which had been passed by Parliament on the 29th April. The Act of Uniformity made Protestantism England’s official faith, established a form of worship which is still followed in English Parish churches today and showed the country
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Claire | April 21, 2010
I have been reading G J Meyer’s The Tudors: The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty, which is an interesting read, but when I got to the part on Elizabeth my blood began to boil. It started off OK – it actually starts with Elizabeth I’s death – and Meyer writes of how, considering
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Claire | April 1, 2010
Today, on Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday), the day we commemorate the Last Supper which Jesus Christ shared with his disciples, I thought it was fitting to look at “Le miroir de l’ame pecheresse” or “The Mirror (Glass) of the Sinful Soul”, the religious poem which Elizabeth translated as a gift for her stepmother Catherine
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Claire | March 18, 2010
On this day in history, 18th March 1554, Palm Sunday, the twenty year old Elizabeth was taken to the Tower of London, the place where her mother had been imprisoned and where her mother and one of her stepmothers had been executed. We can only imagine the sheer terror she felt when Mary I’s council
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Claire | March 8, 2010
Today in celebration of International Women’s Day and Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first female director to win an Oscar, I thought I’d look at Elizabeth I as speechmaker, a lady who would not have any trouble with an Oscar acceptance speech, even if it was completely off-the-cuff! Elizabeth definitely had a way with words and
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