Elizabeth I's Birthday Today; the Blessed Virgin Mary's Tomorrow

Elizabeth Tudor, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's daughter and future Queen of England, Ireland, and Wales, was born on September 7, 1533--the day before the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Professor Helen Hackett of  University College London wrote Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 1995. I admit I cannot afford to buy the book but she deals with the common statement I've often read that Elizabeth's Virgin Queen identity was used to replace veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary--even to replacing the celebration of the Mother of God's Nativity on September 8 with the celebration of the Queen's birthday.

According to the publisher:

Was Elizabeth I worshipped by her subjects? Many twentieth-century scholars have suggested that the Virgin Queen was a cult-figure who replaced the Virgin Mary. But how could this be in a Protestant state officially opposed to idolatry? Helen Hackett examines these issues through readings of a wide variety of Elizabethan texts. She traces some of the cross-currents in Elizabethan culture, and considers both Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary in terms of the history of representations of gender, sexuality and power.

From the reviews I've read, Hackett makes a distinction between secular and religious images. When Elizabeth the Queen was depicted in the Pelican portrait by Nicholas Hilliard (above) the imagery of the mother pelican who fed her young from her breast could have a religious meaning (the Queen as the mother and not just the governor of the Church of England) but could also symbolize her maternal, though virginal, care for her country and her subjects. 

Reading the introduction to the book in a preview, however, I was stunned by Richard Topcliffe's twisted view of the Mother of God--he says that her milk is poison to those who drink it (those Catholics who venerate her image and honor her as the Mother of God)--and while he calls her "our Lady" he considers the religious image a horrific idol. Queen Elizabeth orders the beautiful image of Our Lady cast into the fire, just as she casts her host at Euston Hall into jail in August 1578 during her progress through Suffolk and Norfolk. Her host at Euston Hall was Edward Rookwood and he was a recusant Catholic.

Matthew Lyon describes his arrest on his blog:

There was politics behind the choice of East Anglia for Elizabeth’s summer progress in 1578. During the course of the summer, Elizabeth stayed twice with Philip Howard, Earl of Surrey – heir of the foolish traitor Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk – just turned 21 that June. Kenninghall, Norkolk’s (sic) great palace, had been shuttered since his execution in June 1572. It was reopened now – restored to life – for the queen’s visit, a symbolic restoration. Surrey spent lavishly in pursuit of Elizabeth’s favour: her visits to Kenninghall and another mansion in Norwich were said to have left him £10,000 in debt.

It was no doubt for the benefit of adherents to Norfolk’s former cause that the government stage-managed the humiliation and arrest of a young catholic gentleman named Edward Rookwood as the court made its way from Bury to Kenninghall. Being entertained at Euston, his family’s house, on Saturday August 9th, Elizabeth received Rookwood and gave him her hand to kiss. It was discovered – a piece of theatre – that Rookwood had been “excommunicated for papistry” and he was called before Sussex, the lord chamberlain, who demanded of him “how he durst presume to attempt [the queen’s] real presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person”. Rookwood was ordered out of his own house and, further, committed to the town prison in Norwich.

By the way, Philip Howard, the Earl of Surrey, was the future Saint Philip Howard.

What a guest--invite yourself to a house you know is owed by a recusant Catholic, mock his hospitality, arrest him, send him off to prison, and then stay at his house and destroy his property! Rookwood died in jail in 1598.

But back to Helen Hackett's view of this comparison between the Mother of God and the Queen of England, this blog has some comments summarizing an article by Hackett (“Rediscovering shock: Elizabeth I and the cult of the Virgin Mary.” Critical Quarterly 35: 30-42. Web. 12 June 2014.):

Elizabeth’s court deliberately appropriated Marian iconography in order to promote their cause, Queen Elizabeth I. The “Virgin Mary was simply a convenient female symbol to be appropriated and made use of by the Elizabethan regime, just as all symbols are available for appropriation in the circulation of power between ruler and ruled.” (33-34). Not only that, but they also tarnished the image of the Virgin Mary to the people. They destroyed her image both literally, through public burnings, and through word of mouth. They pit the Virgin Queen and the Virgin Mary against each other, in favor of the Queen. Elizabeth represented the English Church and the Protestant English nation and was, therefore, the image of the one true faith. The Virgin Mary, on the other hand, was seen as a false icon, a seductive distraction from the true, the direct worship of God. The image of a nurturing mother was used to further this, Elizabeth was shown as the nurturing mother of the entire nation, working hard to keep her people happy and safe. The Virgin Mary was presented as poisonous, the “milk” she gave was deadly to those who took it. . . .

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

More about the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary tomorrow.