country, or as a benevolent queen/mother to her sub-
jects/children. Her authority allowed her to demand con-
tinued use of the language and behavior of COURTLY LOVE
with very real political consequences. Of her hopeful
courtiers, she had two English favorites: Robert Dudley,
master of the horse and later earl of Leicester; and Robert
Devereux, earl of Essex. But she did not marry either.
Until her early 40s, Elizabeth was able to keep every-
one guessing whether she would marry or remain single.
Her suitors’ literary output—primarily letters—refl ects
their uncertainty. Some believed that she would never
marry; others hoped that she would marry and bear
children. She thus remained a central female fi gure of
poetry written in her court. In her own poetry, notably
“ON MONSIEUR’S DEPARTURE,” she herself plays with ele-
ments of the courtly love tradition, particularly the
images of burning ice and freezing fi re. In this poem,
she is the one who must allow others to suspect that she
hates, while internally she feels differently. Of the poetry
written to her, the best-developed example of the courtly
love theme is EDMUND SPENSER’s The FAERIE QUEENE, a
poem that features Elizabeth in many guises: She appears
as the Fairie Queen, Belphoebe, Diana, and Cynthia,
among others. Each character maintains her virginity,
and each one is an object of desire. Elizabeth also played
this role in dramatic entertainments that occurred dur-
ing the travels that she took through the country. Writ-
ers often cast her as herself or as the goddess Diana. In
each case, she remained the “virgin queen.”
Elizabeth also encouraged a sense of nationalistic
pride that was closely associated with Protestantism.
She faced two Roman Catholic threats: Mary, Queen of
Scots, and Philip II, king of Spain. As Elizabeth’s north-
ern neighbor and cousin, Mary presented a problem:
She was not only Catholic, she was closely connected
to France, a Roman Catholic force. Mary’s geographical
and genealogical proximity also made her the focus of
Catholic subjects who hoped to replace Elizabeth with
a monarch legitimized by the pope. Because of her
foolish political-personal decisions, however, Mary
eventually found herself letting her heart rule her head,
and she fl ed Scotland for England. Although she hoped
Elizabeth would be hospitable, Mary was captured and
held until her repeated plots against the English queen
forced her execution in 1587.
Like Mary, Philip II also constituted a Catholic
threat. As the war between the Protestant Netherlands
and Philip intensifi ed, the Protestants begged for Eliza-
beth’s support, which she reluctantly gave. Frustrated
by Elizabeth’s refusal to return to Roman Catholicism,
Philip planned a naval assault, which ended with the
defeat of the SPANISH ARMADA in 1588. A Catholic
nation had attempted invasion, thereby escalating the
religious animosity. Pamphleteers used this episode as
God-given material, and writers at and for the court
and other audiences made stronger references to the
confl ict between the two religious systems.
Within her own borders, Elizabeth also had to main-
tain order. She successfully negotiated periods of fam-
ine and starvation and several outbreaks of the plague,
and she variously expressed dissatisfaction with the
carefully regulated social order. She used censorship to
ensure that any work printed for public consumption
presented her and England in a positive light and did
not express views that contradicted those of the state.
The master of the revels rigorously scrutinized any text
for public consumption, and the stationers’ register
listed printers and the texts they printed. For this rea-
son, writers could only obliquely refer to contemporary
events. Those writers who dared to defy the censors
were imprisoned and branded. Despite such controls, a
wide variety of events merited glancing references—for
example, the war in Ireland, English support of Protes-
tants in the Netherlands, and continued exploration of
the New World. Although the identity of her successor
became a more pressing issue, Elizabeth refused to give
any name. When she died, she whispered James Stuart’s
name to her attendants, indicating that she had chosen
him to succeed her (see JAMES VI/I).
As a long-lived queen, Elizabeth provided the stabil-
ity writers needed to produce a wide variety of literary
works. Her court promoted English nationalism and
built on the tradition of courtly love. While much of
this literature centered on Elizabeth’s virginity, she also
possessed political and monetary power. Thus, a noble-
man who wanted to advance at court wrote and offered
poems to Elizabeth. Even those poets who were not
peers wrote her poetry. These poems touched on issues
important to the writer, and in them, Elizabeth often
appeared as a major character. However the poetELIZABETH I 161