A few days later, when her sister, Queen Mary, died, a deputation from Parliament arrived at Hatfield House in mid November, 1558. Tradition reports that they met Lady Elizabeth, who, at the time was in the yard, under a tree, reading a book. When they informed her that she was queen, Elizabeth quoted from the 118th Psalm in Latin, “Domino factum est istud est mirabile in oculis nostris.” (This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in Our eyes.). Throughout England, rejoicing greeted proclamation of the new queen; bonfires were lit; singing and dancing filled the streets; all made merry with food and drink; shouts rang out, “Hurrah! Hurrah! No mingled blood of Spain. No stranger here. A Queen born of mere England here among us.”
At the age of 25, Elizabeth inherited a divided bankrupt state from her father, brother and sister. At the end of her reign at the age of 70, she left England the strongest power in Europe in an exciting age of exploration and expansion. The defeat of the Spanish Armada opened a golden age for voyages of discovery. In American history, Elizabeth is remembered as sponsor of Sir Walter Raleigh in the first English attempt to colonize the New World with the ill fated Lost Colony on Roanoke Island of the Virginia Colony (now in North Carolina), named in honor of the Virgin Queen. But above all, she was England’s Good Queen Bess; so different a queen, one who held the love of her people dearest. Not withstanding her personal vanity and capricious dissembling during the four-plus decades of her glorious reign, it was her subjects’ weal that motivated her actions most.
Elizabeth’s arrival in London for her coronation at Westminster, and for her first meeting with Parliament, was met with an extravagant expression of good will by the people of London. Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster Abbey, November 17, 1558. But, since Reginald de la Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury had died, only days before, the Bishop of Carlisle served in performing necessary religious aspects of the coronation. The Church was still under orders to perform all rituals in the Catholic manner approved by Queen Mary. Elizabeth showed Protestant leanings by departing to a side chapel when the Host was raised during the Mass. This delighted Protestants, but angered Catholics; nothing could please both sects simultaneously.
Beneath the acclimation, Elizabeth’s position was exceedingly grave. She had almost no personal contacts or friends in high places. Virtually all her immediate family had been eliminated, or disgraced, during the reigns of her father, half-brother, and half-sister. She was still under the stigma of bastardy, which had been set upon her by Parliament prior to the execution of her mother, Queen Anne Boleyn. The official religion of the land was still that of Mary’s Catholic decree. It was uncertain which side Elizabeth was on concerning pressing religious issues. Irrespective of which way she leaned, nearly half the nation would oppose her. Moreover, the French war, which Philip had persuaded Queen Mary to wage in support of Spain, had just ended, and had left the public purse empty.
Two weeks after she was declared queen, Elizabeth convened her first Council of State with a slate of appointments of those who would administer power in the land. Foremost of these was commoner William Cecil (later Lord Burghley) who served loyally and wisely as her personal advisor and secretary for 40 years. He kept his promise to the queen that his advice would always be, “True to my best lights without seeking my own favor.” She appointed commoners of ability to her councils, irrespective of Protestant or Catholic persuasion.
She began to build her strength in her first meeting with Parliament by saying, “Nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, is so dear to me as the love and goodwill of my subjects. Have a care over my people. ... They cannot revenge their quarrels, nor help themselves. See unto them for they are my charge.” This set the pattern for her reign. Elizabeth’s greatest joy lay in cultivating the love of her common English subjects. During numerous progresses through the country, she spoke to persons of all ranks, and accepted all gifts presented, valuing only sentiment to be of worth. On one occasion she was given a sprig of rosemary by a peasant woman, and continued to hold it throughout the day. On Maundy-Thursday (the Thursday before Good Friday and Easter) 1560, she washed the feet of twenty peasant women, and gave one of her gowns to each of them. The other side of her condescension was shown in Elizabeth’s insatiable passion for splendor in dress, for inordinately ostentatious display in courtly manners, for magnificent jewels by the bushel, for majestic spectacles at court, and, not least, for Olympian vanity that thrived on extravagant flattery and praise.
