A copy of a portrait of Elizabeth
aged about 14, probably
commissioned by her father,
Henry VIII. Having been
declared the illegitimate
daughter of a disgraced
queen, the young princess
faced an uncertain futureDISCOVER MOREGE
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Helen Castor is a historian, broadcaster and
author. She is co-presenter of Making History
on BBC Radio 4, and has presented several
TV series, most recently England’s Forgotten
Queen on BBC FourBOOK
Elizabeth I: A Study in Insecurity by
Helen Castor (Allen Lane, 2018)before her ninth birthday. The first, Jane
Seymour, died of an infection less than a
fortnight after giving birth to Henry’s son.
The second, Anne of Cleves, was rejected by
the king before the marriage had even taken
effect. And the third, Catherine Howard –
a teenage cousin of Elizabeth’s mother – was
killed in the same way as Anne, as a result of
similar charges of sexual misconduct.
From the summer of 1543 a fourth
stepmother, Katherine Parr, facilitated a
more workable approximation of family life
for the three royal siblings. But the violent
riptides of politics at their father’s court were
never far away, and Elizabeth had neither
the unique status of her brother Edward as
heir to the throne to protect her nor, like
half-Spanish Mary, powerful relatives on the
continent to keep an eye on her welfare.Dangerous daydreams
The uncertainties of Elizabeth’s position
only multiplied after her father’s death in
January 1547. In February 1548 – now living
with the widowed queen Katherine Parr
and her new husband, Thomas Seymour –
14-year-old Elizabeth noted in a letter to
her brother, the young King Edward, that
“it is (as your majesty is not unaware) rather
characteristic of my nature... not to say in
words as much as I think in my mind”. The
significance of this instinct toward opacity
was confirmed a year later when Seymour
was arrested on charges of treason. It
emerged that he had not only flirted
indecorously with Elizabeth but, after
Katherine’s death in childbirth in the
autumn of 1548, planned to marry her.
Elizabeth, it turned out, had not been
resistant to Seymour’s advances. If this was
an adolescent crush on a handsome and
attentive older man – a father-figure whowas not sexually out of bounds, should he
ask for her hand – it is only likely to have
been intensified by the fact that the prospect
of marrying Seymour would spare Elizabeth
the usual fate of royal daughters: to be sent
abroad, in permanent exile from all that was
familiar, to make a new life with a stranger
for a husband. Now, however, it was
suddenly evident just how dangerous such
daydreams might be.
And in response Elizabeth, at only 15,
brought a public mask into political play for
the first time. Under interrogation, with her
closest servants in custody, she remained
immovable, insisting that she had not been
involved in Seymour’s plans, and that there
had been no discussion of marriage without
the explicit proviso that the consent of the
privy council was paramount. “She has
a very good wit,” wrote the harassed Sir
Robert Tirwhit, charged with extracting
her confession, “and nothing is gotten off
her but by great policy.” In March 1549
Seymour was sent to the block; Elizabeth
was left to retreat into the calm of her
books. It was a formative lesson: her
decision to adopt a defensible position and
resist all pressure to shift her ground had
saved her from clear and present danger.Profound and enduring insecurity,
both personal and political, had defined
Elizabeth’s environment and her experi-
ence even before she became the Protestant
heir to her Catholic sister’s throne after
Edward’s death in 1553. Within months,
she found herself in the Tower of London- a prisoner, suspected of treason, in the
same apartments where her mother had
spent her last days. Psychological pressure
found physical expression – her health was
not good, and she had difficulty sleeping –
but her composure, just as it had been
during the Seymour affair, was impenetra-
ble. She was innocent of conspiracy. If Mary
believed otherwise, she must prove it.
And the truth was that, as the Spanish
ambassador admitted through gritted
teeth, “there is not sufficient evidence
to condemn Elizabeth”.
Hidden in plain sight
How, then, are we to understand Elizabeth
as queen? Her accession to the throne in
1558, at the age of 25, brought authority
and autonomy, but it did not bring safety.
Already, her sharp intellect had been forged
into a cautious and subtle intelligence,
and her interaction with the world into
a masked reactivity. Those same instincts –
to watch and wait, to choose her friends
carefully and her enemies more carefully
still – continued to guide the new queen as
the threats to her person and her kingdom
mutated and multiplied.
Mercurial as she could be, difficult to read
as she was, she hid in plain sight. She took up
positions – on religion, marriage, counsel,
diplomacy – at the start of her reign and,
wherever she could, however she could,
rebuffed attempts to make her move. Her
ministers questioned her methods – her
resistance to change, to war, to marriage, to
naming an heir – but Elizabeth’s ambition
as monarch was consistent and coherent: to
seek security through stillness; to manage
the known risks of current circumstances,
rather than precipitate unknown dangers
through irreversible action.
The experience of insecurity, it turned
out, would shape one of the most remarkable
monarchs in English history.As a prisoner, her
health was not
good, and she had
difficulty sleeping.
But under
interrogation, she
was immovable
The queen and her court / Elizabeth’s emotions