Elizabeth I the Not So Great

I take all "compliments" and veneration of all historical figures, ESPECIALLY POLITICIANS, with massive grains of salt.

However, it seems that there is a very one-sided historical precedent for Elizabeth Tudor, proclaiming her as the finest English monarch in history.

I am just curious, what would be some examples of her not so greatness?

Elizabeth is the most overrated English monarch. The only reasons I can think of of why she is popular is because: she is female to inspire the feminists, Protestant, had Shakespeare and the Spanish Armade to inspire the romanticists.

She was vainglorious and depended on English piracy on Spanish shipping to finance the treasury because she refused to raise taxes and therefore hurt her reputation among the population. That was the reason why Spain justifiably launched the Armada, not because England was Protestant. She milked the Armada as much as she could and refused to end the fruitless war against Spain which drained English resouces.

She was just as bloody as Bloody Mary in her persecutions of Catholics and particularly in her barbarous invasion of Ireland.

At the end of her rule, England was ungovernable and in financial ruin. England was lucky that the transition to James was peaceful since Elizabeth obviously didn't care who would succeed her to avoid bloodshed.

It is also James I that should have been more highly regarded. The first thing he did was end the war against Spain which started that years of peace enabling England to colonize North America. He reorgainized the finances and was tolerant towards Catholics. James 1 also supported culture. It was under his rule that Shakespeare wrote his best plays; under Elizabeth he had to write historical plays that glorified the monarchy. James 1 also the started the process that unified Scotland and England a hudred years later. Most of the postitive attributes that English romanticists assoiciate to Elizabeth are better attributed to James : religious toleration, golden age, British Empire and peace.
 
Well, she got the English monarchy involved in perpetual wars with no real strategic-tactical goals worth noting, for unclear reasons. Her reign includes the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which is the one major, real English victory of the war which was otherwise marked by major Spanish victories and served primarily as a waste of money.
 
She was a vacillator, couldn't keep control of her generals, and mortgaged the monarchies future by selling off all the nice clerical property her father gained. If you want negatives you can start there.

I won't argue the first two points, but I will argue the third. She mortgaged off the monarchy's future by selling off what? You mean all those properties that her father dissolved the monasteries for the sole purpose of then selling off to raise crown revenues? She did exactly what Henry would have wanted her to. In fact, all of those properties had absolutely no value to the crown other than as saleable assets...

Her biggest military victory was, in fact, a victory in a war that was lost.

So was Napoleon's. And Rommel's, Hannibal's, Phyrrus', Edward I's, Henry V's. I could think of more off the top of my head. In fact, many of the world's greatest generals made their names by shining for the losing team.

Did she really need to?

After 1587 it was virtually certain to be James. Few people took the others really seriously, though it suited Elizabeth to keep their names "in play" in case wee Jamie got any ideas above his station.

Agreed. Her favoured successor was the one who was most likely to take the throne. She had little reason to ruin this by having her own heir.

Oh? Victoria wasn't the beloved imperial matriarch that all Britons adored (at least post-1872) :(

Not really. Victoria was venerated, respected. She led a good life as the head of a pure, moral state. But these things aren't the kind to make you loved. It's the same as comparing memories of the teacher at school who got on best with the kids, and the one who actually taught you the most. Oftentimes the ones who teach you the most are the ones who keep their class strict and take a long time to actually come to respect.

Elizabeth is the most overrated English monarch. The only reasons I can think of of why she is popular is because: she is female to inspire the feminists, Protestant, had Shakespeare and the Spanish Armade to inspire the romanticists.

She was vainglorious and depended on English piracy on Spanish shipping to finance the treasury because she refused to raise taxes and therefore hurt her reputation among the population. That was the reason why Spain justifiably launched the Armada, not because England was Protestant. She milked the Armada as much as she could and refused to end the fruitless war against Spain which drained English resouces.

She was just as bloody as Bloody Mary in her persecutions of Catholics and particularly in her barbarous invasion of Ireland.

At the end of her rule, England was ungovernable and in financial ruin. England was lucky that the transition to James was peaceful since Elizabeth obviously didn't care who would succeed her to avoid bloodshed.

It is also James I that should have been more highly regarded. The first thing he did was end the war against Spain which started that years of peace enabling England to colonize North America. He reorgainized the finances and was tolerant towards Catholics. James 1 also supported culture. It was under his rule that Shakespeare wrote his best plays; under Elizabeth he had to write historical plays that glorified the monarchy. James 1 also the started the process that unified Scotland and England a hudred years later. Most of the postitive attributes that English romanticists assoiciate to Elizabeth are better attributed to James : religious toleration, golden age, British Empire and peace.

You make some good points, but also I have to disagree with many. For a start, most overrated? Nah, I'd say Richard I was. A brilliant general, but one who knew nothing of ruling a country and actually went on wars to avoid having to do it. Elizabeth genuinely did leave the country in better shape than she acquired it in. Richard did not. For that alone, Elizabeth requires at least some respect. She was vainglorious? Sure she was. So was Louis XIV yet he was France's greatest ever King. I don't see the problem here. As for requiring the raiding of Spanish shipping to fund the treasury, I think you're overestimating the effect of this. England's finances were dire, but a country relying on piracy would generate about 1/100th the revenue it needed. England had plenty of other revenue sources, even if they were fairly dry. It's also a point here that pretty much every country in Europe bled theirselves dry funding war in this era. It's just how the medieval era worked. At least she never declared bankruptcy. Philip II of Spain did that four times.

At the end of her reign, England was not ungovernable. That's just poppycock. So is claiming that she didn't care about a successor. She had nominated James for that role decades before. As for James ending the war with Spain - you realise he did that because he was a perennial worrier who was so scared of the idea of Spain attacking England (the very thing that it had failed to do for thirty years and through six Armadas - yes, there was more than just one) that he instantly sued for peace and basically bent over backwards to appease Spain. The treaty he signed virtually obliged England to respond to Spain's beck and call whenever it so desired. Thankfully, treaties in that era didn't tend to last long. And yeah, James started the process of combining the two countries. (Incidentally, as soon as he left Scotland he turned his back on it - hardly the actions of a glorious uniter of the realms) - but he did that because Elizabeth had made him her heir.

The funny thing is, Elizabeth isn't even my favourite monarch. Not by a fair way. I just think there are some points that were in need of a redress there.
 
Well, she got the English monarchy involved in perpetual wars with no real strategic-tactical goals worth noting, for unclear reasons. Her reign includes the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which is the one major, real English victory of the war which was otherwise marked by major Spanish victories and served primarily as a waste of money.

Yeah, agreed. I mean, her reign was important domestically, but in regards to foreign policy, it was not the greatest. She was indecisive, and often refused to properly support her generals as they needed to be supported. Of course, you have to understand how early modern government operated: early modern government was expensive to run, and modern wars in this case were fortunes. These two modern forms of expenditure had to be reconciled with the medieval system of the collection of taxes and duties. Still, Elizabeth's intervention in Scotland in 1560, as well as her intervening to help the Huguenots in the siege of La Havre were disastrous.

A major issue was that upon her ascension, her per annum income was around £200,000. She was expected to use this to fund her court and her government. She inherited debts of some £227,000 from her sister Mary. The economy was also in bad shape, so that a year after her ascension, her per annum income had been reduced to some £135,000. The years of Mary's reign were unusually wet, and there were crop failures and famine in the land. Elizabeth's economic situation was not very good upon her ascension, and the years of 1559-1560 were probably a little rough.

By the 1570s, her economic situation was better. Her income had recovered and Parliamentary Taxation (Parliamentary "Subsidies") went towards quelling the rebellion in Ireland. Even despite fighting a war in Ireland, she had a surplus of some £50,000.

In the 1580s, she sent an expeditionary force to the Netherlands. It wasn't even a very large force: it was 5,000 Infantrymen and 1,000 Cavalry. Despite this, she expected that it would cost her £126,000 a year to maintain her force in the Netherlands. This quickly became £134,000 a year because Leicester discovered that these troops weren't being paid the same amount as those who fought over in Ireland.

Despite this, the troops pay in the Netherlands was constantly in arrears, and between the signing of the Treaty of Nonsuch and October of 1586, Elizabeth spent £20,000 over the supposed amount she would be spending a year. She sent over £52,000 in March, with additional £24,000 after that; Another £40,000 in August followed by £30,000 in October. Corruption was very much part of the Elizabethan army, as the pay was probably embezzled by the troop's superiors.

Still, the cost of the force greatly alarmed Elizabeth, and she applied for and was granted Parliamentary subsidy in 1585. A total of £9,000 was raised that year, and then £90,000 in 1586. Yet it still wasn't enough to offset the costs of the force and she had to request a second subsidy in 1587, even before the final installment of the 1585 subsidy was paid out. She was also forced to dip her surplus of some £300,000 to fund the costs of fighting in the Netherlands... reducing it to £154,000 by the end of 1587. It was pretty clear that the surplus would be gone if it was kept going, and any other finances would be exhausted too, as people would soon tire of the taxation (Parliamentary Subsidies/Taxation were essentially special taxes on top of taxes already being paid). Elizabeth also spent about £300,000 during her reign to improve the fortifications of the country.
 
Elizabeth is fortunate in numerous ways in terms of her posthumous reputation.
1) Her reign is sandwiched between two monarch (Mary I and James VI and I) who aren't highly regarded - it makes her look better.
2) She reigned for a long-time - giving time for an image to develop.
3) Her reign delivered a wealth of cultural material: Shakespeare, Marlowe and Spenser for example and like all the tudors left a plethora of letters and state papers which means we have far more evidence of her reign and life than other monarchs who might be considered great.
4) Her virginity (whatever you might think of her relationship with Dudley etc) - she ruled alone in a time when it was unusual for someone of her sex to do so and made full use of her single state as a diplomatic tool.
5) She was blessed with an ability to pick councillors from a pretty intelligent, ruthless and determined bunch of later Tudor courtiers. She was great probably because of Burghley and Walsingham.
6) SHe had the "common" touch no matter how authoritarian she could be (I am an absolute princess etc) - rather like the late Diana or Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, she had a knack of being able to converse with people from differing backgrounds, using ladles of charm - that left an impression.
7) The Armada victory fits very nicely with an idea of England (and later Britain) standing alone against overwhelming odds - it fits the national conciousness quite well. It is easy to gloss over the fact that she hardly went to war \and when she did she was so tight with money it failed (Dudley's dutch adventure for example) or that the Armada began more than a decade of war with Spain which drained the treasury and was won by luck rather than military genius.
8) She inherited a debt-ridden country that looked like an easy target and left a country that was relatively stable and financially secure.
9) Her protestantism - stands out as a moderate form that arguably enabled England in the short term to avoid the bloodshed that hit France due to political and religious conflict.
10) She was highly educated and deeply intelligent - she is an admirable figure personally.
11) Her Englishness - Elizabeth could be viewed as the last truly English monarch - her parents, all her grandparents and all but one of her great grandparents were English.
(Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII, Thomas Boleyn, Elizabeth Howard, Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV (France), William Boleyn, Margaret Butler (anglo-irish), Thomas Howard, Elizabeth Tilney) - Her nationality and the 'purity' of her englishness was a propoganda tool she made great use of.
Failures:
1) The Succession - largely due to her failure to produce an heir of her own body, and her constant unwillingness to name an heir. It was never clearly established who would succeed even in the 1590s when she played with James VI and her courtiers who were already in conversation with him by dragging other potential heirs to court, like Arabella Stuart, and giving the impression of a change in the expected result.
2) Religion - she laid the foundations for Puritan rebellion against her Stuart successors by failing to tackle protestant dissent within the established church and by sticking to the idea of the monarch as Supreme Governor of the C of E which caused immense problems for her heirs.
3) The last decade of her reign was a failure - forced to face down rebellions, facing failing harvests, her generous granting of monopolies in certain goods to court favourites, the continuing war with Spain all marrs her record somewhat.
4) Arguably her belief in the sanctity of monarchy led her to be an unwilling, parsimonious participant in the Netherlands, France and Scotland where she considered those she was urged to support (by her council often) as rebels against their lawful sovereign.
 
As for James ending the war with Spain - you realise he did that because he was a perennial worrier who was so scared of the idea of Spain attacking England (the very thing that it had failed to do for thirty years and through six Armadas - yes, there was more than just one) that he instantly sued for peace and basically bent over backwards to appease Spain. QUOTE]


From what I know of Queen James, I'd have thought him more likely to have bent over forwards.
 
Elizabeth wasn't that highly regarded at the end of her reign - a lot of the nobility and gentry were quite pleased at her demise because she had been too stingy with titles, pensions and estates, and had spent too much upon herself (not that the latter was a problem of itself, but it was when allied to the lack of patronage). James VI & I rapidly made up for the former problem.;) He also stopped the horrendous drain that was the Spanish war, although the extreme Protestants weren't all that pleased at this.

The perception of Elizabeth's reign as a Golden Age dates from the 1640s/50s onwards - civil wars and the perception that the Stuart monarchs were imposing an 'unEnglish' type of absolutism upon them are a good reason to look nostalgically upon a time before all these damn Scottish kings with their odd political and religious ideas.;) I imagine this view gained more currency after the Glorious Revolution.
 
Incidentally, as soon as he left Scotland he turned his back on it - hardly the actions of a glorious uniter of the realms
I don't agree with this comment. While he only returned to Scotland once after the Union of Crowns, I think that overlooks the difficulty of an extended period of travel for a monarch who was at the very centre of decision making, and the difficulties of travel itself before the age of railways. It's also the reason why Prime Ministers barely ever left the country before WW1, and to a certain extent WW2 besides holidays. Certainly James VI & I never forgot about his native land. He once said, after the Union, something along the lines that he governed Scotland better by the pen than his predecessors ever did by the sword, and he was actively involved in policy-making for Scotland - this very idea of Union during the early part of his reign, the reformation of the Church of Scotland into an episcopal body and the establishment of Nova Scotia, to name three.
 
If I may chime in on the matter of James VI & I--I'd argue a lot of his bad reputation can be laid at the doorstep of his son, Charles 'the Utter Disaster' I. (Another good chunk can be laid at the doorstep of Baby Charles' son James II "the Stupid Ghit".) After two Civil Wars against Stuart monarchs, the Whiggish national myth was forged that the Stuarts had just never quite gotten it right--with the possible, highly conditional exception of Charles II, and even that would be disputed--and so the nation was now well rid of them.

Of course, if Henry Frederick hadn't died, and Charles had spent his life doing something more to his skill level ("And here you go, Charles! Now, stay in this room, and make sure that nothing falls. Absolutely nothing!"), then the Stuarts would probably have a better reputation.
 
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