"Thou English goddesse, empresse of our sex" : Elizabeth I in the works of sixteenth and seventeenth century women writers.

Abstract

Queen Elizabeth I of England stands as one of the most prominent women in the history of Western Europe. She ruled England successfully for forty-five years during a period when relations between men and women at all societal levels were changing. Although Elizabeth did not mean to elevate the status of all women, her very position attracted the attention of female writers, as well as male. Because she was an unusually powerful and respected woman, women writers specifically have used the example of Queen Elizabeth to argue for an expanded position for women in society. Female writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries used Elizabeth's image to represent the ideal monarch and ideal woman. During her reign and just following her death, writers including Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, Aemilia Lanyer, and Esther Sowernam looked to Elizabeth as a patron and as a strong influence, one to whom and about whom they could write without drawing negative attention to themselves as female writers. Later female writers used the memory of Queen Elizabeth more obviously for political reasons. In 1630, almost thirty years following the death of Elizabeth, Diana Primrose examined Elizabeth's virtues in order to criticize Charles I of England and highlight his shortcomings as a monarch, while Bathsua Makin, a seventeenth-century feminist, looked back to Elizabeth as a role model and as a positive example who could help advance the positions of women in society. Makin and other seventeenth-century feminists advocated education and the use of intelligence to draw women away from traditional domestic roles. Although Queen Elizabeth I did not intend to be an advocate for women but rather to secure her own position as ruler of England, many women writers looked to Elizabeth's life and reign for qualities of the ideal monarch and woman, qualities which they examined through literature even after her death in 1603.