ELIZABETH, queen of England, daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, was born at Greenwich, on the 7th of September 1533. According to the custom of the times, she was early instructed in the learned languages, first by Grindal, who died when she was about seventeen, and afterwards by the celebrated Roger Ascham. She likewise acquired considerable knowledge of the Italian, Spanish, and French languages. Dr Grindal was also her preceptor in divinity, which she is said to have studied with uncommon application and industry. That Elizabeth became a Protestant and her sister Mary a Catholic, was the effect of that cause which determines the religion of the greater part of mankind, namely, the opinion of those by whom they were educated; and this difference of opinion in their tutors is not at all surprising, when we recollect that their father Harry was of both religions, or of neither.
But the studies of Elizabeth were not confined merely to languages and theology; she was also instructed in the political history of the ancients; and was so well skilled in music as to sing and play "artfully and sweetly."
After the short reign of her brother Edward, her sister Mary succeeding to the crown, Elizabeth experienced a considerable degree of persecution, so as to be not a little apprehensive of a violent death. She was accused, imprisoned, and, we are told, inhumanly treated. At last, by the intercession of King Philip of Spain, she was set at liberty; which she continued to enjoy, till, on the death of her sister, she, on the 17th of November 1558, ascended the throne of England. Her history as a queen is detailed in the article ENGLAND. The cares of government did not wholly suspend her pursuit of learning. Ascham, in his Schoolmaster, tells us that about the year 1563, five years after her accession, she read more Greek in one
Ellizondo day than some prebendaries of that church did read Latin in a whole week. That the Latin language was familiar to her, is evident from her speech to the university of Oxford, when she was nearly sixty, and also from her spirited answer to the Popish ambassador in the year 1598. And that she was also skilled in the art of poetry, appears not only from the several scraps which have been preserved, but likewise from the testimony of a contemporary writer, Puttenham, in his Art of English Poetry. These are his words: "But last in recital and first in degree is the queen, whose learned, delicate, noble muse, easily surmounteth all the rest, for sense, sweetness, or subtlety, be it in ode, elegy, epigram, or any other kind of poem." In this author are to be found only a specimen of sixteen verses of her English poetry. "But," says Mr Walpole, "a greater instance of her genius, and that too in Latin, was her extempore reply to an insolent prohibition delivered to her from Philip II. by his ambassador, in this testaceous.
To veto ne pergas bello defendere Belgas:
Quæ Dracus eripuit, nunc restituuntur oportet:
Quas pater evertit, jubeo te condere cellas:
Religio papæ fac restituatur ad unguem.
She instantly answered him, with as much spirit as she used to return his invasions,
Ad Græcas, bone rex, fient mandata kalendas."
She died in her palace at Richmond, the 24th of March 1603, aged seventy, having reigned forty-four years; and was interred in the chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. She was the author of the following works: 1. The Mirror, or Glass of the Sinful Soul, which she translated from French verse into English prose when she was eleven years old. The translation was dedicated to Queen Catharine Parr. Probably it was never printed; but the dedication and preface are preserved in the Sylloge Epistolærum, in Hearne's edition of Livii Poro-Juliensis, p. 161. 2. Prayers and Meditations, dedicated to her father, and dated at Hatfield, 1545. Manuscript in the Royal Library. 3. A Dialogue from Xenophon, between Hiero a king yet some time a private person, and Simonides a poet, touching the life of the prince and the private man. This was first printed from a manuscript in her majesty's own handwriting, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1743. 4. Two Orationes of Isocrates, translated into Latin. 5. Latin Oration at Cambridge, preserved in the king's library; also in Hollinshead's Chronicle, and in Fuller's History of Cambridge. 6. Latin Oration at Oxford. 7. Comment on Plato. 8. Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiæ, translated into English anno 1593. 9. Sallust De Bello Jugurthino, translated into English anno 1590. 10. A Play of Euripides, translated into Latin. 11. A Prayer for the use of her fleet in the great expedition in 1596. 12. Part of Horace's Art of Poetry, translated into English anno 1598. 13. Plutarch De Curiositate, translated into English. 14. Letters on various occasions to different persons. 15. Several Speeches to her Parliament; and a number of other pieces. (See Wood's History and Antiquities of Oxford; and Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.)