Biography on queen elizabeth 1 quotes armada
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Indeed, the egg-shaped finial behind her left shoulder may symbolise rebirth and eternal life. It depicted Elizabeth I, then in her late 50s, as a symbol of female majesty who embodied the hopes and aspirations of a nation.
Whilst portraits of the Queen were in high demand – perhaps for courtiers to declare allegiance or demonstrate wealth – Elizabeth participated in very few portrait sittings throughout her life.
In the bottom right is a mermaid, a creature believed to tempt sailors to perilous waters, perhaps representing Elizabeth’s power over the Spanish sailors. The Armada had no choice but to sail on, and, refused entry to Scottish ports, it was largely wrecked on the Scottish and Irish coasts. In this portrait, Elizabeth turns her back on the Spanish struggle, and faces towards the calm sea.
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First Published: March 2017
Revised (substantive): 9 May 2021
S O R R Y, but this e-publication page — giving three 17th-century versions of Elizabeth I’s celebrated Armada speech, delivered on 9 August 1588 to the English troops at Tilbury, which includes the famous line: “I know I have the bodie, but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and Stomach of a King, and of a King of England too ....” (as transcribed by Leonell Sharpe, c.1623; other 17th-century transcripts use slightly different phrasing) — is still under construction.
^ 17th-century head-piece, showing six boys with farm tools, engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677).
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope that you will return to check on its progress another time.
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Gower was a leading portrait painter of his age, and employed as Elizabeth’s ‘Serjeant Painter’ from 1581.Despite the unknown origins, all three portraits are a triumph of Elizabethan propaganda.
The Earl presented it to the British Museum in 1765, and it was later transferred to the National Portrait Gallery in 1879, where it still hangs.
Both the Woburn Abbey and National Portrait Gallery versions have an addition of classical marble columns, framing the seascapes. Fearing that the blazing ships might contain explosives, the Armada cut cables to escape and were carried north.
Over the previous few years, the royal navy had been built up and contained a several new vessels of revolutionary design, which enabled them to carry more artillery, and be more manouevrable at sea. Once Scottish waters had been reached, and ammunition and stores exhausted, the English withdrew.
From Cleopatra to Catherine de Medici, women in power receive very different criticisms to men.
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There are three surviving versions of this portrait, all painted around 1590.
The message? The Armada sailed on to Calais, with the commander, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, unaware that Parma’s barges were unable to escape through Netherlandish shipping around Gravelines. So once a portrait had been royally approved, this was often reproduced multiple times to satisfy demand (used more as an approved ‘pattern’ or ‘template’).
This monochrome scheme was also an allusion to Cynthia, the goddess of the moon (black for night, white for the pearl-like moon), and probably alluded to Raleigh’s 15,000 line elegy to Elizabeth ‘The Ocean’s Love to Cynthia’. Elizabeth’s finger even points towards the first English colony in the Americas, on Roanoke Island, which had been established three years before in 1587.
The country was convulsed with religious war. This version was at some point ‘cut’ down on both sides, leaving a vertical portrait without the seascapes. However it may also represent a claim of ancient lineage: the Tudors argued they were descended from Brutus of Troy, who was supposedly a descendent of Aeneas, the mythical first king of Britain.