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Tudor Women Weak? No Way!

© Wendy J. Dunn

'Women are weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish...Queens are repugnant to nature', thus ranted John Knox in his Blast of the Trumpet, a treatise published in the year 1558.

In an age of Queens, John Knox - a leader of the early Protestant church in Scotland - especially tiraded against the rules of the three catholic Marys' - Mary Guise, her daughter, Mary of Scotland, and Mary Tudor. We- especially those of us fortunate enough to live our lives in parts of the world where determined women shatter glass ceilings every day- may flinch at his words, but John Knox only expressed society's view prevalent to this time. It was a view so entrenched upon the consciousness of the time people rarely questioned it.

Even Elizabeth I, a supremely intelligent woman, appeared on the political stage apologetic for her femaleness, referring to herself as 'Prince' on many occasions during her long reign as Queen. And this was the same multi-skilled Elizabeth Tudor who possessed the confidence to say, 'I thank God I am indued with such qualities that of I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place in Christendom."

I believe one of Elizabeth's grandest moments as Queen was when England faced the fear of Spanish invasion. Seventeen years prior to the sailing of the Armada, the pope had excommunicated Elizabeth, the papal bull written in such a way as to make it a deed worthy of being heaven blessed if any of her catholic subjects chose to assassinate her. The force of this bull had been re-inforced by the papal power of 1580, a letter from Pope Gregory saying,

[since] the guilty woman of England rules over two such noble kingdoms of Christendom and is the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith, and loss of so many million souls, there is no doubt that whosoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin but gains merit, especially having regard to the sentence pronounced against her by Pius V of holy memory." (ii)

Thus, clearly- to the Pope and any of Elizabeth's catholic subjects deciding to take heed of his words- it was no sin to murder England's Queen. Knowing this- and understanding a little of Elizabeth great fear of violent death- indeed of any death- makes the words she said- face to face- to her troops at Tilbury even more stirring: