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
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