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Authors: Peter Brimacombe
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Mary was left so disfigured she felt compelled to leave the Court and never show her face again. âAs foul a lady as the small pox could make herâ, 6 Sir Henry was sadly to tell Sir Francis Walsingham many years later.
This traumatic event made the more far-sighted members of the Council give further serious consideration to the vexed matter of the succession, for, in spite of constant urging, there was still no sign of the Queenâs intention to marry. She was approaching thirty, virtually past the time when a healthy child could be delivered safely in an age of high infant mortality. As members of the Council redoubled their efforts to find the Queen an appropriate husband, others were already beginning to contemplate the possibility of her never becoming a bride, and pondering precisely what the consequences of such a situation might be. Some were even evaluating the merits of preserving the status quo. Later, when there was still no obvious successor in sight, Sir William Cecil even drew up plans for the establishment of a republic in the event of the Queenâs death, in order to avoid the nation being plunged into political turmoil. If the Queen had died of smallpox in October 1562, posterity would have looked back on an unremarkable reign of no particular consequence; as it was, through a mixture of the Queenâs robust nature and strength of purpose, coupled with sheer good luck, she survived to go on to far greater things. This combination of circumstances typified the essential nature of Elizabethâs time on the English throne. As Elizabethâs reign developed and she weathered the initial trials and tribulations, she grew in stature and confidence, her authority no longer based on hopeful anticipation but on solid achievement acknowledged by all her subjects. Both the perceptive Queen and her largely supportive Council shared an awareness of the concept of the divine right of kings, as well as an acknowledgement of Bractonâs celebrated dictum of the monarch being subject only to God and the Law. Nevertheless, there was an unspoken caveat which required the monarch to perform satisfactorily as a ruler after ascending to the throne through Godâs blessing, together with an invisible subtext demanding that the monarch should be seen to be successful â otherwise a replacement would be swiftly found. Elizabeth was acutely aware of the number of occasions in history that a monarch had been replaced, from Edward II to Richard III, usually in painful circumstances for the individuals concerned. The divine right of kings might assist a monarch to acquire the throne but gave no guarantee of maintaining it, something that Elizabethâs Stuart successors ignored at their peril. Even the most forceful of kings, such as Henry II and her father Henry VIII had faced serious insurrection during their time on the throne, something the astute Elizabeth never forgot. She had an almost Churchillian sense of history and her place within it, being extremely determined to rule successfully and leave her mark for posterity.
There was something of a sea change taking place in the England of the second half of the sixteenth century. The population increased by more than a million during Elizabethâs reign, the largest growth being in an expanding middle class, which was better educated and more affluent than in medieval times, and representing an important new strand in the nationâs social strata. A perceptible shift was developing in the nationâs power base, away from its traditional aristocratic origins towards the landed gentry and prosperous merchants. It was a situation that was later to climax in an explosive confrontation between King and Parliament in the middle of the seventeenth century. While in most respects Elizabeth was the last of the medieval monarchs, she could equally be said to be the first constitutional ruler on the English throne, not by desire, but by force of
This traumatic event made the more far-sighted members of the Council give further serious consideration to the vexed matter of the succession, for, in spite of constant urging, there was still no sign of the Queenâs intention to marry. She was approaching thirty, virtually past the time when a healthy child could be delivered safely in an age of high infant mortality. As members of the Council redoubled their efforts to find the Queen an appropriate husband, others were already beginning to contemplate the possibility of her never becoming a bride, and pondering precisely what the consequences of such a situation might be. Some were even evaluating the merits of preserving the status quo. Later, when there was still no obvious successor in sight, Sir William Cecil even drew up plans for the establishment of a republic in the event of the Queenâs death, in order to avoid the nation being plunged into political turmoil. If the Queen had died of smallpox in October 1562, posterity would have looked back on an unremarkable reign of no particular consequence; as it was, through a mixture of the Queenâs robust nature and strength of purpose, coupled with sheer good luck, she survived to go on to far greater things. This combination of circumstances typified the essential nature of Elizabethâs time on the English throne. As Elizabethâs reign developed and she weathered the initial trials and tribulations, she grew in stature and confidence, her authority no longer based on hopeful anticipation but on solid achievement acknowledged by all her subjects. Both the perceptive Queen and her largely supportive Council shared an awareness of the concept of the divine right of kings, as well as an acknowledgement of Bractonâs celebrated dictum of the monarch being subject only to God and the Law. Nevertheless, there was an unspoken caveat which required the monarch to perform satisfactorily as a ruler after ascending to the throne through Godâs blessing, together with an invisible subtext demanding that the monarch should be seen to be successful â otherwise a replacement would be swiftly found. Elizabeth was acutely aware of the number of occasions in history that a monarch had been replaced, from Edward II to Richard III, usually in painful circumstances for the individuals concerned. The divine right of kings might assist a monarch to acquire the throne but gave no guarantee of maintaining it, something that Elizabethâs Stuart successors ignored at their peril. Even the most forceful of kings, such as Henry II and her father Henry VIII had faced serious insurrection during their time on the throne, something the astute Elizabeth never forgot. She had an almost Churchillian sense of history and her place within it, being extremely determined to rule successfully and leave her mark for posterity.
There was something of a sea change taking place in the England of the second half of the sixteenth century. The population increased by more than a million during Elizabethâs reign, the largest growth being in an expanding middle class, which was better educated and more affluent than in medieval times, and representing an important new strand in the nationâs social strata. A perceptible shift was developing in the nationâs power base, away from its traditional aristocratic origins towards the landed gentry and prosperous merchants. It was a situation that was later to climax in an explosive confrontation between King and Parliament in the middle of the seventeenth century. While in most respects Elizabeth was the last of the medieval monarchs, she could equally be said to be the first constitutional ruler on the English throne, not by desire, but by force of
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