Queen Elizabeth I: When Vanity is a Tool

Queen Elizabeth may well have been vain, but her political acuity may have never been matched since her reign. She was raised as a Protestant in a world that was still overwhelming Catholic and in a country that still had more than a tenuous attachment to the Catholic faith. Where Queen Elizabeth's political astuteness is most assured is her realization that she had to walk a tightrope between the two faiths.

Her vain qualities may be confused with her acuteness. She was a master of vagueness, allowing both sides to interpret her statements and loyalties as they would, without giving them so much as to become encouraged that they possessed all her loyalty. That vain quality may also have led to her decision to at least never marry if not necessarily to remain the virgin she was thought to be. If indeed she was a virgin, it's possible to believe she was so because she felt no one deserved the reward of her virtue except God. At any rate, her virginity-whether real or myth-came to be quite highly valued tool. As she grew older and it became more apparent that she would never marry, Queen Elizabeth's ascension to bride of God deepened. She became a thing worth protecting; a symbol of God choosing England for something special.

The split from the Romans had begun the process of the British seeing themselves in a different light from the rest of the world. The defeat of the Spanish Armada under Queen Elizabeth and the rise toward naval dominance certainly helped to feed that view that England was destined for something great; perhaps even destined toward replacing Rome as the next great empire? Elizabeth's wisdom in knowing when to speak and when to keep quiet helped imbue that sense of destiny almost certainly.

The major issues facing Elizabeth early in her reign revolved around the disputes between the protestants and Catholics. Although there was little doubt that she would set England firmly on the course toward Protestantism, there was still enough loyalty to the Catholic church to force Queen Elizabeth to engage in extreme measures to ensure that the primacy of the Anglican church would rule out.