The Classical Education of Queen Elizabeth I

As a child, Queen Elizabeth I was clever and verbally precocious. She received a language-rich classical education (Latin, Greek, French Italian), and also studied the Bible, ancient philosophers and history, and poets and orators. Roger Ascham said his aims of teaching were three: 1. to instill moral principles, 2. to provide an intellectual guard against adversity, and 3. to set an example for others to follow.

Elizabeth's palace-schooling routine was split into a morning and an afternoon session:

"The mornings were usually devoted to readings of the Greek New Testament, after which Ascham chose readings from the orations of Isocrates , the tragedies of Sophocles, and the works of Demosthenes to complete the lessons of the day.

Non‐scriptural readings were carefully selected by Ascham to instruct Elizabeth in areas that “would be of value to her to meet every contingency of life” (I lxiii). Furthermore, as Ascham notes, the texts chosen were of those “best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a defense against the utmost power of fortune”. Other works that Elizabeth is known to have studied include those texts by St. Cyprian and the Commonplaces of Melanchthon, Luther’s disciple. These would have influence the development of her religious concepts.

Elizabeth’s afternoons were devoted almost entirely to the reading and studying the entire repertoire of Cicero and a significant part of Livy...Additional study time was divided between French and Italian, which she spoke as well as she spoke English."

Elizabeth didn't just sit with her books, though. She was also an avid horseback rider, danced, hunted. Elizabeth's training held her in good stead for the challenges she faced with the Protestant-Catholic tensions and attack by the Spanish Armada. She inspired her country with the following words in 1588:

"My loving people, we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people."

Ascham's The Scholemaster.
The Early Education of Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I portrait at PBS
Queen Elizabeth I's Speech Against the Spanish Armada

Mid-Week Nonsense Poetry: The Diplomatic Platypus

I found this delightful poem in Gilbert Highet's The Art of Satire. Really wonderful!

The Diplomatic Platypus
by Patrick Barrington

I had a duck-billed platypus when I was up at Trinity,
With whom I soon discovered a remarkable affinity.
He used to live in lodgings with myself and Arthur Purvis,
And we all went up together for the Diplomatic Service.
I had a certain confidence, I own, in his ability,
He mastered all the subjects with remarkable facility;
And Purvis, though more dubious, agreed that he was clever,
But no one else imagined he had any chance whatever.

I failed to pass the interview, the board with wry grimaces
Took exception to my boots and then objected to my braces,
And Purvis too was failed by an intolerant examiner
Who said he had his doubts as to his sock-suspender's stamina.
Our summary rejection, though we took it with urbanity
Was naturally wounding in some measure to our vanity;
The bitterness of failure was considerably mollified,
However, by the ease with which our platypus had qualified.

The wisdom of the choice, it soon appeared, was undeniable;
There never was a diplomat more thoroughly reliable.
He never made rash statements his enemies might hold him to,
He never stated anything, for no one ever told him to,
And soon he was appointed, so correct was his behaviour,
Our Minister (without Portfolio) to Trans-Moravia.

My friend was loved and honoured from the Andes to Esthonia,
He soon achieved a pact between Peru and Patagonia,
He never vexed the Russians nor offended the Rumanians,
He pacified the Letts and yet appeased the Lithuanians,
Won approval from his masters down in Downing Street so wholly, O,
He was soon to be rewarded with the grant of a Portfolio.
When on the Anniversary of Greek Emancipation,
Alas! He laid an egg in the Bulgarian Legation.

This untoward occurrence caused unheard-of repercussions,
Giving rise to epidemics of sword-clanking in the Prussians.
The Poles began to threaten, and the Finns began to flap at him,
Directing all the blame for this unfortunate mishap at him;
While the Swedes withdrew entirely from the Anglo-Saxon dailies
The right of photographing the Aurora Borealis,
And, all efforts at rapprochement in the meantime proving barren,
The Japanese in self-defence annexed the Isle of Arran.

My platypus, once thought to be more cautious and more tentative
Than any other living diplomatic representative,
Was now a sort of warning to all diplomatic students
Of the risks attached to negligence, the perils of imprudence,
And, branded in the Honours List as 'Platypus, Dame Vera',
Retired, a lonely figure, to lay eggs in Bordighera.

The Diplomatic Platypus by Patrick Barrington

Art History : Caravaggio and Three St. Matthews

Michelangelo Mrisi da Caravaggio was a rebellious and impetuous personality who burst onto the art scene in the late middle ages, ushering in the Baroque style of art. Compared to the flat, emotionally placid, and stationary look of Saint Matthew in the Lindesfarne Gospels (below), baroque painting was life-like, moving, and often conveying powerful emotional feeling.




Above is Caravaggio's The Inspiration of St. Matthew. The figures are boldly appear out of the darkness and the angel swirls above Matthew to guide his thoughts. Interestingly, this painting was not Caravaggio's first on this subject - his first, below, was rejected by the Chapel San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome - perhaps because it portrayed St. Matthew in too humble an image. In the painting below (unfortunately destroyed in World War II, only this black and white photograph remains), Matthew is dressed as a poor man (rather than aristocratic philosopher)and the angel is seen to guide even his hand as he reads the lines of a book.


The three St. Matthews demonstrate the different interpretative choices that an artist must make when translating an event or a story into visual form.

By the way, it's thought that the word Baroque originated from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning an unpredictable and elaborately shaped pearl.
At left is the famous Canning Sea Dragon made in the late medieval period from baroque pearls.

For more about Caravaggio or helpful art history sites, check out the links below. Interestingly, there have been some recent startling Caravaggio finds in Church backrooms and lofts. Paintings of Doubting Thomas and Emmaus were found and verified just last year (for more, click here), and The Taking of Christ was found in a Jesuit House dining room in 1993 after it had disappeared some 200 years earlier.

Boston College: Biography of Caravaggio
Art and the Bible
Art History Today Blog

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day, we remember the brave men and women who gave their all. Our thanks, too, to all the brave servicemen and women currently serving overseas.

"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."
- Thucydides


Remember Our Heroes on Memorial Day

More Medieval Poetry Fun & Games

William the Conqueror (by Chesterman)

William the Conqueror, 1066,
Said to his captains, 'I mean to affix
England to Normandy. Go out and borrow
Some bows and some arrows, we're starting tomorrow.'
So William went conquering hither and thither
'Til Angles and Saxons were all of a dither
He conquered so quickly you couldn't keep count
Of the counties he conquered, I think they amount
To ten, or a doxen, or even a score,
And I haven't a doubt he'd have conquered some more,
But death put an end to the tactics, thank Heaven,
Of William the Conqueror, 1087.

Henry the VIII (by Farjeon)

Bluff King Hal was full of beans
He married half a dozen queens
For three called Kate they cried the banns
And one called Jane, and a couple of Annes.

The first he asked to share his reign
Was Kate of Aragon, straight from Spain
But when his love for her was spent
He got a divorce, and out she went.

Anne Boleyn was his second wife.
He swore to cherish her all his life,
But seeing a third, he wished instead
He chopped off poor Anne Boleyn?s head.

He married the next afternoon
Jane Seymour, which was rather soon,
But after one year as his bride
She crept into her bed and died.

Anne of Cleves was number four.
Her portrait thrilled him to the core,
But when he met her face to face
Another royal divorce took place.

Catherine Howard, number five,
Billed and cooed to keep alive.
But one day Henry felt depressed,
The executioner did the rest.

Sixth and last was Catherine Parr
Sixth and last and luckiest far
For this time it was Henry who
Hopped the twig, and a good job too.

For education-lite breaks, check out these Games and Animations:

Tudor Britain
Elizabethan Spying Game
Re-enact the Battle of Hastings
Odd Man Out Game (What Doesn't Belong?)
Dress King Henry
Build a Medieval Arch Animation

References:
Poetry Library Quotes