Queen Elizabeth I and her Parliament.
Engraving from 1608. The Granger Collection.


QUEEN ELIZABETH I ON RELIGION.

[1585]

Of the high idea which Elizabeth entertained with respect to her own superior skill in theology, as well as the haughty tone in which she dictated to her subjects what they ought to believe, we have a striking picture in her speech at the close of the parliament, A.D. 1585:—

     "One thing I may not overskip. Religion, the ground on which all other matters ought to take root, and, being corrupted, may mar all the tree. And that there be some fault-finders with the order of the clergy, which so may make a slander to myself, and to the church, whose over-ruler God hath made me, whose negligence cannot be excused, if any schisms or errors heretical were suffered. Thus much I must say, that some faults and negligences must grow and be, as in all other great charges it happeneth; and what vocation without?  All which, if you, my lords of the clergy, do not amend, I mean to depose you. Look ye, therefore, well to your charges. This may be amended without needless or open exclamations. I am supposed to have many studies, but most philosophical. I must yield this to be true, that I suppose few (that be no professors) have read more. And I need not tell you, that I am not so simple that I understand not, nor so forgetful that I remember not; and yet, amidst my many volumes, I hope God's book hath not been my seldomest lectures, in which we find that which by reason all ought to believe. I see many overbold with God Almighty, making too many subtile scannings of his blessed will. The presumption is so great that I may not suffer it." &c.