Diary of Elizabeth I – Religion

February 20th, 1603

Dear diary,

I’m at the end of my days. I’m thinking about the situation of my kingdom and its and my past. I have no children and there isn’t a successor because I’ve decided to dedicate my entire life to politics.

If I think to when I was crowned Queen, I remember I was so excited, but I couldn’t guess it was going to be so hard and stressful.

Beforme me, my half- sister Mary had the throne, and she was a fervent catholic. I didn’t agree and didn’t support her religion, because it was against my political thought; indeed, the first thing that I did regarding religion as I became queen was to bring back the protestant faith of whom I was leader.

For this, I was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, but I didn’t actually care.

I tried to consolidate the unitary power of the monarchy through an official religion with religious peace and harmony between classes. I only see now that I was not very religiously tolerant, I didn’t really appreciate the Catholic religion, instead, I only accepted the Anglican church on a Protestant and Calvinist basis, this means that I was tolerant only with Protestants.

This is why I was hated from the Catholics. My half-sister Mary and I had many rows for our religious ideas, because she was Catholic while I was Protestant.

Unlike my half- sister Mary my imposition was moderate and peaceful, but maybe that was a wrong choice because by doing that I earned the fury of some Protestants who were convinced that my reforms were inadequate in proportion to how the Catholics behaved with them and they wanted them to be out of England.

I didn’t really mind about erasing every Catholic from england…But should I?

The Catholics started getting more violent due to the fact that i was flexible with them.

They were violent to the point that they tried to kill and deceive me.

King Philip II for instance, tried to marry me for the sole purpose of becoming the king and enstablish, or better…to impose Catholicism back again.

Fortunately, my slogan has always been “Married to England.” so I didn’t really care about men, fortunately for me I am not that easy.

By the way I just wanted to tell you, dear diary, this is my relationship with religion, it has always been complicated.

At the end of my life, I realize that religion is an important part of my being, it lead me through difficult decision and situations and I hoped that it still does it. I’m a fervent protestant and I believe that this is the perfect religion for myself and for England; I respect the Catholics but I didn’t sympathized with them and with their faith because I think that it’s caused problems to my power as Queen and to all people who have a political role.