The England Of Elizabeth I

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31262, 7 January 1967, Page 4

The England Of Elizabeth I

The Elizabethan Epic. By Lacey Baldwin Smith. Jonathan Cape. 280 pp.

Debunking historical characters has become a favourite practice in the world of pres-ent-day literature. Backed up by scholarship it is a wholesome cathartic for the clogging effects of romanticism. The author here gives his version of what is often called the “Golden Age” of England, though its central figure—the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth l—is shown as trying to preserve as a ruler some of the mediaeval character of her predecessors.

Elizabeth’s tenacious hold on the nation’s purse-strings, and her belief in the infallibility of crowned heads did undoubtedly smack of a Middle Ages mentality, but in throwing off the domination the Catholic Church, and the power politicians who directed it, Henry Vlll’s younger daughter showed a political sagacity which was of considerable benefit to her subjects. Relative peace from religious persecution can be re-

corded as one of Gloriana’s contributions to progress, in an age torn by savage religious dissensions.

The author has displayed great insight into the minds of the “Monstrous Regiment of Women” condemned by John Knox—three of whom were prominent in the annals of contemporary history. Catherine de Medici, wife and mother of unstable Kings of France is shown, not as the terrifying poisoner of legend, but as an Italian woman of low birth perpetually seeking security. Her purpose was “Simple and domestic —palaces and sceptres for herself and all her brood . . . but historic circumstances and the shallowness of her own mind made a mockery of even such modest ambitions.” By the same token Mary Queen of Scots was only too obviously the architect of her own misfortune-—loving unwisely, and intriguing for the English throne with such naievety that she could only bring undoing to herself and those who rallied to her cause. “Only Elizabeth succeeded. She was no modern woman, but at least she was an adult and a realist free of obsession.” Henry of Navarre, the wisest opportunist of his time, said of her “She only is a king. She only knows how to rule.” Certainly “Gloriana” in her protracted struggle with Philip of Spain was, diplomatically speaking, a match for that model of single-minded religious fanaticism, and survived him long enough to see the end of serious menace from his countrymen.

The author allows Elizabeth these achievements, but is less kind to her adventurous and ambitious subjects. In a rather searing chapter entitled “A Decade of Heroes” the great names of Elizabeth’s reign are depicted as men whose pride, vanity and common jealousies led them into actions which were so flamboyant as to make them appear to posterity largely as boastful exhibitionists. But, without exception they were extremely brave. “One and all—Raleigh, Essex, Frobisher, Drake, Leicester, Norris, Gilbert Sidney, Grenville—were willing to ‘pay nature’s debt with a cheerful countenance, for they courted death and never feared it’.” Naturally enough this quality in their ancestors is a matter of pride to present-day Englishmen, and excuses the Elizabethans’ piratical excesses, and, as in Grenville's case, totally unnecessary suicides in the name of glory.

The dispersal of the Armada is shown in these pages to have been historically inevitable. The English fleet was far more up to date, the English seamanship superb and the English seamen could deal with the wallowing top-heavy enemy galleons in the British home waters which they knew intimately, on their own terms. Readers of this evocative study are made aware of the utter futility of the religious struggles which rent Europe during the Elizabethan era. Internecine religious war in England was of minor proportions compared with the mass-murders of the Huge-not-Catholic struggle in

France, and the ghastly tortures inflicted on heretics in Spain. Elizabeth’s Catholic subjects were, for the most part, loyal to their sovereign, the Babington conspiracy, which was designed to put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne, being engendered largely by Mary’s fatal, and fully-exploited charm. For the rest, the solid political worth of Burghley, and his son Robert Cecil, whose wisdom and devotion to the Queen were fully appreciated by her, did much to keep the country on an even political keel, and to offset the monarch’s rare mistakes in giving appointments to those of her favourites who had not the wisdom to use them intelligently. The author refrains from making any comparison between the factional struggles of the Elizabethan age with those of our own day, when “ideologies” have supplanted religious beliefs and compulsions. This omission throws into relief the many absurdities of which Europeans were then guilty, but whose follies could be matched in the 20th century by a few well-chosen parallels. The book is a Book Society Choice, and well merits its selection.