Sun, moon and star qualities
Elizabeth Jenkins
ELIZABETH I
his is a work of massive research, for which readers interested in the period will be grateful. It does not differ, essentially, from the accepted view of Queen Eliza- beth, entirely devoted to a life's work of inspiring a small nation engaged in a des- perate struggle for survival, and uniquely gifted for the task. Besides her natural qualities, Elizabeth had the extraordinary advantage that the drawbacks of her life all turned to good. The beheading of her mother when she was two years and eight months old, and of her kind stepmother when she was eight, inflicted on her a trau- ma that made the idea of a complete sexual
union terrifying to her, and this concealed attitude was of inestimable value in a for- eign policy, of which a marriage alliance was often the foundation but not the desired outcome. It was also of great value at home. The deranged sexual instinct, diverted into an avid greed for sexual admi- ration and a passion for self-presentation in rich, brilliant dress, played a highly import- ant part in building up the public image; that she had no family led her to feed on the emotional satisfaction of knowing herself ardently beloved by the majority of her people, to whom her continued existence meant security, prosperity and peace.
The cast of her mind was naturally cau- tious, and the neurotic damage done to her in her childhood had produced a degree of hesitancy, of indecision, which was almost pathological and was in surprising contrast to her physical bravery and the decision and power with which she spoke in public; but this hesitancy and hyper-caution often made dealings with her purgatory to her ministers, and her excessive economy, with- out which her government could not have survived, added to their burden. This work records every turn of anxiety, impatience and exploding indignation, chiefly between Burlegh and Walsingham, and as there is a great deal of such material, this part of the picture is most unattractive, however interesting. All this is relentlessly exposed, but the evidence of Elizabeth's extraordinary popu- larity is generously recorded — of her cor- dial patience and attention in acknowledging the enthusiastic welcome of the crowds through which she passed. Of all English monarchs, she was the one most highly gifted with 'star quality'. Some of the minutiae of the behind-the-scenes struggles make for slow-going, but the passages in the work which call for narrative skill — the exposition of the utter impossibility of separating the religious from the political issue, which the Queen herself, who leant towards religious toleration, would have been most happy to do, the entire episode of Mary Queen of Scots, of the Armada and the misguided, miserable career of Essex — are told not only in illuminat- ing detail but with clarity and pace. Refer- ring to the cult of Diana, Anne Somerset writes:
Elizabeth had frequently been compared to the sun, but the properties of the moon, remote and yet enticing, chaste but not sex- less, are in many ways a more appropriate metaphor.
It is strange that so good a writer should admit so many flat modernisms: 'plonked herself down', 'boost her ego', 'he peddled the line that . . . ' and on p. 287 there is an almost breathtaking misuse of language. Elizabeth, having held out hopes of a sub- sidy to Scotland, 'swiftly dozed off into her familiar torpor'. Torpor! It is not a word any of her contemporaries, whether friend or foe, would have used about her.
Though so much is well related, it is a curious feature of this book that when some anecdote is recorded, the well-known dramatic detail is left out. After the news had been received of the Massacre of St Bartholomew, the French ambassador, de La Mothe Fenelon, at last admitted to an audience with the Queen, found her sur- rounded by the Privy Council and a group of courtiers. Anne Somerset says:
They eyed him reproachfully, sunk in mean- ingful silence.
But she does not say, as he said, that they and the Queen were all dressed in black; that coup de theatre goes by the board.
This happens so often throughout the book that one feels it must be done on some sort of system; but this is of minor importance compared with the scope of the main outline, which gives a portrait, not prejudiced in favour of the sitter, some- what wry, in fact, but with so much fidelity that the effect is just and exhilarating. It is admirably finished off with one of the Queen's statements to Parliament at the close of the reign, that her people's love made
a heavy burden light and a kingdom's care but easy carriage to me.
Elizabeth Jenkins is the author of Elizabeth the Great and Elizabeth and Leicester.
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