This episode focuses on the reign of Elizabeth I of England. It is a great connection to our last episode about Henry VIII. This could be a great way to gain contextualization for understanding how to teach about Elizabeth I in class and for just having a better understanding of her political reign as a sovereign queen.

Sources Used in the Episode:

Primary Source I:

“Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other’s harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth that I should be suspected to have no regard to the same? … I will be tried by envy itself. I need not to use many words, for my deeds do try me.”

— Response to Parliamentary Delegation on Her Marriage, 1566.

Primary Source II:

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too … to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood … I myself will be your general…”

- Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, August 9, 1588.

Secondary Source:

Janel Mueller, a professor of English language and literature at the University of Chicago, with a specialization in English Renaissance and Reformation literature in its historical context, she published extensively on rulers such as Elizabeth I, Virtue and Virtuality: Queen Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Body Politic (2001), University of Chicago Press (excerpted and slightly condensed for clarity):

“Elizabeth shows uncharacteristic anxiety about her feminine gender at intermittent points in her reign when courage is concerned, but for the most part she represents herself as transcending the social and biological mandates associated with womanhood. She insists that, although being a woman by birth, she may exercise the prerogatives of the crown ‘without doubt, ambiguity, scruple, or question,’ that is, with the full authority of a sovereign of either sex. In her Parliamentary speeches, she turns back suggestions of marriage by arguing that her gender is irrelevant to her capacity to rule and positing a benevolent affective bond between herself and her subjects. In one speech, she declares: ‘Though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had.’ By these rhetorical strategies, Elizabeth negotiates her legitimacy as a queen in a male world: she claims divine sanction, regal office, and virtue to override gendered expectations, while sometimes acknowledging the tension involved.”

(Mueller, Virtue and Virtuality, 2001, pp. 3–5)

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Recommended Websites:

Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)

https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewart

Foreign Policy Research Institute Link:

https://www.fpri.org/

Council on Foreign Relations

https://www.cfr.org/

Global Conflict Tracker

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker

Institute for the Study of War

https://www.understandingwar.org/