Digging
back in my head looking for who I would nominate the first conservative.
Crowned queen amid uncertainty. Her country was broke but at the end of her
reign the country was rich and the best credit risk in Europe due to her
conservative monetary policies. The
country was defenseless when she ascended the throne, having had years of
neglect of both army and navy. When she
left it was supreme on the seas. Reformed
her church, quelled religious strife, leaving a legacy of doctrine.
And thus they call her Elizabeth the
Great. Only by the grace of God did she
become queen. Her Grandfather Henry VII
was a wily character who married his sons and daughters to gain political
alliances. He married son#1, Arthur, to
Katherine of Aargon, hopeful to cement a Spain-England alliance. (Yes, there really was to be a king-to-be
Arthur.) But Art died young before
assuming the throne. Henry VII, to keep
the alliance going, arranged for son#2, Henry, to marry Katherine. It was a horrid marriage. Energetic HenryVIII wanted a son as heir and
Katherine could only give him a daughter, Mary Tudor. In 1533, Hank defied the pope and had his own
Archbishop of Canterbury annul the
marriage. He married Ann Bolin,
who tried hard to have a son, but only got miscarriages and a little red-haired
girl. Henry accused Ann of infidelity
and had her beheaded. He married third
time, Jane Seymour, then a 4th, 5th and 6th
time and got a son Edward. Henry went mad from syphilis he had
contracted along the way and died in 1547. Edward became king. The two girls had been declared bastards by a
complicit Parliament. But Edward was
very, very young and died seven years later. Now who was to be queen-- Mary
Tudor or Mary Stuart, who was Queen of Scotland and a cousin?
The people were largely Catholic,
having been born Catholic, but under Henry, the church was like Catholicism
without a pope—the King was declared head of the church in England, hence
making it Protestant in name. Mary
Stuart would have been the choice of the majority, but Parliament was
Protestant. When Hank had taken over
church lands, he handed them out to supporters who fretted that if Catholicism
were re-established in England, they would lose lands and maybe their heads. Mary Tudor was the chosen as a defender of
royal rights over the church but she was also Catholic. “Bloody Mary” became
embroiled in theology and began to severely persecute Protestants, putting many
to death. But 5 years later she was dead, ironically the victim of a severe
feminine disorder misdiagnosed as pregnancy.
Bloody Mary hemorrhaged to death.
Even more ironically, 4 years before, Elizabeth was implicated in a plot
of overthrow Mary and was awaiting execution in the Tower, when suddenly Mary
had a most unusual change of heart and pardoned her.
So in 1558 as Elizabeth’s coronation
parade went past the Tower, she saw herself as queen by grace alone. She was hanging by a thread. The defenses of England had been neglected
for 12 years and the British Isles were ripe for foreign takeover. France had 4
times as many people and strong ties to Scotland. The
currency was rotten, Interest was 14%, the government ran off crown lands (no income
taxes then) and they had been mismanaged terribly. Catholics and Protestants looked to be on the
brink of war. Pauperism was
rampant. England was known for its
backwardness, though occupied Ireland, with almost no roads was worse. But every experience that Elizabeth had
encountered had made her survival instincts strong. Only a strong absolute monarch (it was
thought) could provide peace. Nobody
expected to find the heart of an emperor behind the smiles of a 25-year-old
girl.
She honored her brother and father’s
debts. She appointed commoners, had them
knighted. They had particular management skill for the crown lands. William Cecil had particular genius for wise
and conservative policy. Elizabeth was
not given to rapid decisions, but she had the brains, like Ronald Reagan to
wait out the consequences and trusted her strong advisors. Low taxes(fees), flourishing trade, domestic
order and peace were her unwaivering goals.
As a diplomat Elizabeth was without peer.
She spent practically nothing,
except for her gowns. Realizing that if
she could advertize herself as marriageable, she would hold off the suitors and
could play them against one another. And
so she held a court as if it was one continuous party. A mask followed by a ball followed by another
mask. The arts flourished with
Shakespeare and hundreds of others. Ambassadors
came with proposals from their kings.
What a prize! A beautiful young girl comes with the dowry of the British
Isles! She ate like a bird, had a fetish
to stay youthful, danced like a troubadour, rode horses like the men, and
traveled the country from village to village lavishing toasts and kind words on
the local barons. Soon all England loved
her—or at least loved the low taxes and flourishing trade. She was a Protestant but left constant hints
about not straying far from Catholicism tempting the Catholic Princes of Europe
with designs to bring England back to the fold.
“If she were not a heretic,” said Pope Sixtus V, “she would be worth the
whole world.”
Virginity was her secret weapon, and
modern historians speculate without much proof that she had trysts, or was gay
or hemophroditic. Philip II the great
potentate of Catholic Christendom and the Hapsburg dynasty asked her hand in
marriage in 1559 but she rejected this device for making England a Catholic
dependency of Spain. Elizabeth was
married to England.
She could cuss like a boar hunter
(and did both) and once she had made a decision she was the Iron Lady like
Thatcher. When in danger she was all
courage and intelligence. She spoke
French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Greek--speaking directly to foreign envoys
without translater.
In all governments before 1789, it
was taken for granted that some religion was necessary for social order. Elizabeth liked the Catholic ceremony, had
not so much committal to a life of faith, but Luther’s grace was her issue. England was Catholic without the pope since
Henry VIII. Protestant refugees from all
over Europe had fled to London and brought Calvinism and other versions. So typically politician, she arranged a
Convocation in 1563 for the Protestants who then hammered out 39 Articles. The new Anglican faith was Lutheran in most
doctrine but Reformed in the Eucharist. Ritual
remained almost Catholic. Masses,
Catholicism were abolished and all Brits were to attend church regularly or pay
a fine. Now it was the turn of
Catholics to suffer persecution.
Governments of the time considered that theological dissent was a form
or political revolt and so about 60 Catholics were executed and a couple
hundred imprisoned for their dissent. This
was nothing compared to the other nations of Europe and Elizabeth was tolerant
in many ways. In 1581, the Catholics on
the continent, growing impatient with this Anglican queen called for her
assassination. It was foiled and she
emerged more beloved by the English than ever—Catholic and Protestant.
That was also about the time that
Hawkins and Drake began to raid Spanish shipping with a vengeance. The English were pirates. English Channel is
well named. English pirates went after
Spain’s New World merchant vessels, and Elizabeth was secretly building ships
for the pirates—a share of the loot was the payback. All the while officially Spain and England
were at peace and she claimed she could do little about the renegades. When Drake and Hawkins began to raid the Azores and the
Caribbean and stole the African Slave Trade from Portugal, the Spanish had had
enough. They began to build an Armada to
invade England. Now it may seem to us moderns that slave trade and piracy are disgusting acts, but in 1580 they were practiced by most nations. Think of Elizabeth trying to break the Spanish and Portugese monopolies.
1588 was do or die and Elizabeth
found the English supporting her in excess of what she asked. Weather was part
of the downfall of the Spanish fleet, but so were poor seamanship and
tactics. Spanish tactics were to pull
alongside and grapple with hooks to join the boats for a massive hand-to-hand
swordfight. The English used cannons and
strafed the Spaniards, and sent floating inferno boats into their fleet . They
defeated the Armada in a series of
running battles for 3 weeks in July 1588. Of 130 ships and 27,000 men who had
sailed from Spain, 10,000 mostly sick and hurt came home in 54 ships. England had 82 ships and only a dozen
lost. England now had the way clear to
settle in N. America, the greatest navy in the world, a stable currency, and
it was insured that Europe would remain half-Protestant.
Elizabeth was no saint or sage, but
a woman of temper and passion, in some ways the wiser counterpart to her
father. She kept succession questions at
bay while Mary Stuart was alive. Then Stuart's son James became King of Scotland. Typically rebellious, he had turned
Protestant and snubbed his French relatives. He would be the new English king
to oppose France and authorize the translation of the Bible.
Denied husband and child, Elizabeth
mothered England, loved it, used herself up serving it. She is still thought of as the greatest monarch
England ever knew. Low taxes and fees,
patriotic, listened to everyone, built a strong national defense, broke the Spanish monopoly on the new world. Looks like a conservative to me.
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