American Minute with Bill Federer
England's Virgin Queen Elizabeth
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"Bloody Mary,"
daughter of
Henry VIII,
reigned 5 years, during which time her government sentenced
Lady Jane Grey
-the Nine Day Queen - and 300 others to their deaths.
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She burned at the stake the
Oxford Martyrs: Bishop Hugh Latimer,
who had been Edward VI's chaplain;
Rev. Nicholas Ridley,
who had been the Bishop of London; and
Thomas Crammer,
the former Archbishop of the Anglican Church.
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As they were about to be executed, October 16, 1555,
Bishop Hugh Latimer
exhorted
Nicholas Ridley:
"Play the man, Master Ridley. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."
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When Mary died, NOVEMBER 17, 1558, her half-sister
Elizabeth became Queen.
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Elizabeth was the daughter of
Henry VIII
and
Anne Boleyn.
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Elizabeth
attempted to take the
middle ground
between England's strict
fundamentalist Puritans
on the one side and England's centuries old
Catholic
heritage on the other.
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At her Coronation in 1558, when questioned as to the presence of Christ in the Sacrament, Elizabeth responded
"Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it."
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Elizabeth
stated:
"There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles."
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Elizabeth
continued the
Church of England
begun when her father,
Henry VIII,
separated from Rome.
"Puritans"
wanted to purify the
Anglican Church,
insisting it be separated even further from Rome.
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Another group gave up trying to purify the
Anglican Church
and decided to separate themselves - being called
"Separatists"
or
"Pilgrims."
Pilgrims
eventually fled to
Holland,
and then later to
America.
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During the 45 year reign of
Queen Elizabeth I,
monumental achievements occurred.
Shakespeare
wrote 38 plays impacting world literature.
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Sir Francis Bacon
began the scientific revolution. In his treatise titled,
Of Atheism,
Francis Bacon
declared:
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"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
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In 1577,
Sir Francis Drake
began the second voyage in history to
circumnavigate the globe,
almost 60 years after Ferdinand Magellan's first voyage.
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In 1579, Oxford educated priest
Thomas Stephens
became one of the first western Christian missionaries, and probably
the first Englishman, to reach India
, converting many of the upper Indian society by writing
Kristpurana - Story of Christ.
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In 1600, English navigator
William Adams,
sailing for the
Dutch East India Company,
arrived in
Japan.
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In 1584,
Sir Walter Raleigh
began a colony he named
Virginia,
in honor of the
"Virgin Queen Elizabeth."
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Virginia's Charter,
1584, stated:
"Elizabeth,
by the Grace of God of England ... Defender of the Faith ...
grant to our trusty and well beloved servant
Walter Raleigh
... to discover ... barbarous lands ... not actually possessed of any Christian Prince, nor inhabited by Christian People ..."
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Virginia's Charter
continued:
"Upon ... finding ... such remote lands ... it shall be necessary for the safety of all men ... to live together in Christian peace ...
Ordinances ... agreeable to ... the laws ... of England, and also so as they be not against the
true Christian faith."
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In 1585,
Sir Walter Raleigh
established a settlement at
Roanoke Island,
in present-day
North Carolina,
but it had to be ignored for three years due to Spain's impending invasion of England.
The colony was mysteriously abandoned, being referred to as
"The Lost Colony."
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Spain
had defeated the
Ottoman Muslim fleet
at the
Battle of Lepanto
in 1571, but rather than free the rest of the Mediterranean from Muslim control,
Spain
turned its attention to subduing the
Reformation in Holland and England.
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Beginning in 1572,
Spanish General Alba,
known as the
Iron Duke,
committed the
"Spanish Furies,"
pillaging, burning, raping and slaughtering in Holland.
This led to the 80 years war and eventually
Holland's independence.
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In 1588, the
Invincible Spanish Armada
sailed to invade England.
The Armada consisted of 130 ships, 1,000 iron guns, 1,500 brass guns, 7,000 sailors, 18,000 soldiers, plus 30,000 soldiers from the Spanish Netherlands.
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Queen Elizabeth
told her troops, August 19, 1588:
"Let tyrants fear ...
I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman;
but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that ... Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm ...
I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general ...
Your valour ... shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people."
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England's
smaller, more maneuverable vessels proved difficult for the
Spanish
to apprehend.
Then, at midnight, July 28, 1588,
Sir Francis Drake
set eight
English ships
on fire and floated them downwind to the closely anchored
Spanish ships.
In a panic, the
Spanish ships
cut anchor. An unusual violent hurricane scattered and
destroyed most of the Spanish Armada.
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When
King Philip II of Spain
learned of the loss, he exclaimed:
"I sent the Armada against men, not God's winds and waves."
If
Spain
would have won, there would not only have been
no Anglican England,
there would have been
no Puritans, no Pilgrims, no New England,
and n
o United States.
America would have just been an extension of New Spain - Mexico.
With its Armada destroyed,
Spain's monopoly of the seas ended.
England was established as a major European power, and Holland, Sweden, and France joined in founding colonies in America.
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Adam Smith
wrote in
The Wealth of Nations,
1776:
"The
Spaniards,
by virtue of the first discovery, claimed
all America as their own,
and ... such was ... the terror of their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent ...
But ... the
defeat ... of their Invincible Armada
... put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements of the other European nations.
In the course of the 17th century ...
English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes
... attempted to make some settlements in
the new world."
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Queen Elizabeth,
the last Tudor monarch, stated in 1566:
"I am your Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom."
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Elizabeth
told William Lambarde in 1601:
"He that will forget God, will also forget his benefactors."
Queen Elizabeth
told the House of Commons in The Golden Speech, November 30, 1601:
"Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my Crown, that I have reigned with your loves ...
I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen, as to be a Queen over so thankful a people ...
The title of a King is a glorious title, but ... we well know ... that we also are to yield an account of our actions before the Great Judge."
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In France, the tolerant
"Good King" Henry IV
had at least
a dozen assassination
attempts on his life before he was eventually
assassinated in 1610.
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When rumors arose in
England
of a possible plot to assassinate her,
Elizabeth executed dozens,
including, sadly,
her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots,
who was under her protection.
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Mary Queen of Scots
was the
mother of James VI,
who became England's next monarch,
King James I,
noted among other things for the
Jamestown Colony
and the
King James Bible.
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Responding to questions from Parliament regarding succession after her death,
Elizabeth
stated:
"I know I am but mortal and so therewhilst prepare myself for death, whensoever it shall please God to send it."
Elizabeth
died March 24, 1603.
Of her epitaph,
Queen Elizabeth I
said:
"I am no lover of pompous title, but only desire that my name may be recorded in a line or two, which shall express my name, my virginity, the years of my reign, and the reformation of religion under it."
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
[email protected]
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