Elizabeth I’S Most Famous Speech Exposed – Did It Even Happen? | Elizabeth I’S Tilbury Speech

Famously, Queen Elizabeth I supposedly once said that she had the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but the heart and stomach of a king. But did her speech at Tilbury in 1588, on the eve of an expected invasion, courtesy of the Spanish Armada, really happen? And was she actually wearing armour and sitting astride a beautiful white horse, or is this a case of pseudo-history? Let's go back to the original sources to find out. Just before we jump in, please remember to give the video a like if you enjoy it, and subscribe to my channel with the notification bell switched on so you never miss an upload. You can also join my YouTube Membership for extra perks, or find me over on Patreon, where I release even more bonuses, including early access to ad-free videos and extra podcasts. The link is below for you, as is one to my website, where you can sign up to my free mailing list and get two complimentary downloads right away. The year was 1588, and England was facing a very dark moment indeed. King Philip of Spain, the one-time brother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth and one of Europe's most powerful Catholic monarchs, had sent a huge armada of ships to invade the kingdom. They looked set to arrive on the coast in early to mid-August. Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was in charge of organising defences at Tilbury, near the mouth of the River Thames, in case Spanish soldiers should arrive there. On the 6th of August, the Queen herself came to review the troops amassed there, and during her visit, she supposedly made the following speech on the 9th of August. My loving people, We have been persuaded by some, that are careful for 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 goodwill of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, 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 my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too. And think foul scorn that Parma, meaning the Duke of Parma, one of King Philip's commanders, or Spain or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm, to which, rather than any dishonour shall grew 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 for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns, and we do assure you on a word of a prince they shall be duly paid. In the meantime my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject. Not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, meaning England slash Wales and the Kingdom of Ireland, and of my people. It's an epic speech, presenting Elizabeth as a warrior queen, right up there with Boudicca. The visuals were apparently fantastic too. Read or watch any number of books, movies and TV shows and you'll be told that she wore armour and was trotting around on a white horse. This is what you'll see in 2007's Elizabeth the Golden Age, starring Cate Blanchett for instance. In that production Elizabeth looked even more impressive than the written record presents her as, thanks to the fact that at the time of filming Blanchett was a youthful looking 37 rather than nearly 55 with blackened teeth, smallpox scars and the kind of sun damage you could expect to get, even in England, from living in an era with no sunscreen. Aside from how much younger and healthier Ms Blanchett was compared to the real Elizabeth though, how accurate is the rest of the story? You would think something as important as this would have been reported on at the time, and that the earliest sources we have for this version of the speech would date to 1588 itself or maybe 1589 at the latest. Nothing could be further from the truth. We do have two poems and a song written and published in 1588 by Thomas Deloney, James Aske and an anonymous author called T.I. or T.J. which confirm that Elizabeth carried out a review of the troops and credit her, in Aske's case, with being most bravely mounted on a stately steed, with truncheon in her hand, not used thereto. But there is little else to describe her clothing. Deloney says only that she had a plume of feather. All of these reports confirm that she spoke to her troops, and I'll get to what they claim she said shortly, but the version of the speech I just read out to you, despite its fame, only appears in the written record for the first time in a book called Cabala, Mysteries of State, published in 1654. Now that book contains transcripts of many older letters and details of the speech are given in one such missive, written by a churchman named Dr. Lenel Sharp to his patron George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. I know Lenel sounds like it should be Lionel, but it's spelt L-E-O-N-E-L. It is undated and we don't have the original manuscript written by Sharp, but internal evidence suggests that it was composed in 1623. How reliable is it though? In this account's favour is the fact that back in 1588, Sharp had been in the service of the Earl of Leicester at Tilbury, and there is no reason to doubt his claim that he was there at the same He also asserted that the day after she left, he was commanded to redeliver the oration she had made to the wider army. This would seemingly explain why he had a record of her words, and he specifically told Buckingham that, Some historians, including Janet M. Green in the 16th Century Journal in 1997, have also argued that in length, tone and construction, the speech is very much in the rhetorical style of Elizabeth, recognisable from other speeches and letters we have which we know On the other hand, no matter what he says about having had the speech written down for so long, the fact remains that we cannot definitely trace this version of the text to any document written prior to 1623, 35 years after the Armada. Now there is a copy in the British Library written in what Green was convinced was Sharp's own hand, but it is undated. Given the little errors in it though, she wondered if it was the copy that he actually wrote down at Tilbury, his speed in writing explaining some typos and missed out words, or soon afterwards, and used to repeat the Queen's words to other troops the next day. Unfortunately, despite Green's assertion that it was written by Sharp, which she got other scholars to agree with, in 2014 a book came out which said that the watermark on the paper showed that it is from the 1680s, long after Sharp's death and a full century after Tilbury. Unless the watermark evidence can be overturned, we are still left with no earlier version of the Sharp speech than the 1623 letter published in 1654. There are other reasons to be cautious about trusting Sharp's word too. He had worked in Elizabeth's household from 1601 and so would have been familiar with her speaking style and perhaps able to imitate it. He was an ardent Protestant and virulently anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish, even writing and publishing numerous tracts against both, and in 1623 he was arguing against a proposed marriage alliance between a Spanish princess and the future Charles I, who was then the heir to the throne. It therefore made sense that he would emphasise the perceived dangers of the Spanish and show that the strength and wisdom of the great Protestant Queen Elizabeth and her understanding of the dangers of Spain had helped to avert disaster in 1588. Either this bias or a serious misremembering of events led him to include certain information in the letter which was patently false. He claimed, for instance, that Don Pedro de Valdez, a Spaniard who had been captured by Francis Drake, made statements during his interrogation which were brought to Elizabeth at Tilbury, and which included the declaration that the plan of the Spanish, upon landing in England, had been to kill nearly all the English, even Catholics, they could get their hands on, including children over the age of seven. In fact, this interrogation did not even occur until the 14th of August, after Elizabeth had left Tilbury, and Don Pedro said no such thing Also writing in the 16th Century Journal, though this time back in 1992, Susan Fry noted that despite swearing that his information was accurate, Sharpe seems to have gotten these wholly inaccurate details from hysterical pamphlets published at the time, not reliable informants who had spent time with Don Pedro. If he was There are two other reasons to doubt Sharpe's account of the speech. One is that there are no other copies of it, though historian Stephen W. May has pointed out that Elizabeth dismissed most of her retinue as she made her way through the camp, limiting the number of people available to hear and copy down her words. The other is the aforementioned competing accounts of her visit to Tilbury, which date to 1588 itself, contradict what he claims happened and provide different speeches. Let's now look at them in detail. Thomas Deloney published his ballad, The Queen's Visiting of the Camp at Tilbury, the day after Elizabeth's visit, so this really is contemporary, and he said that she spoke as follows Now this is a series of rhyming couplets, clearly not designed to provide a word-for-word account of what the Queen said, but rather pick out some key points. I'm sure Elizabeth wouldn't Deloney is taking some artistic license here for his celebratory poem by presenting her words in this way. Still, it provides the sentiment that Elizabeth would be there with her troops in battle, not unlike the idea in other versions of her speech that she was prepared to fight for her country herself, and even has a reference to stomachs, though not her stomach of a king. Next, we have James Ask's 1588 poem, Elizabetha Triumphanus, published a few months after Tilbury, which said And though of love their duties crave no less, Yet say to them that we in like regard, And estimate of this their dearest zeal, If time of need shall ever call them forth, To dare infield their fierce and cruel foes, We'll be ourself their noted general. No dear at all to us shall be our life, No palaces or castles huge of stone Shall hold us then our presence from their view, But in the midst and very heart of them, Ballona-like, we mean as then to march. On common lot of gain or loss to both, They well shall see we wreck shall then betide, And as for honour with most large rewards, Let them not care, they common there shall be. The meanest man who shall deserve a mite, A mountain shall for his dessert receive. And this our speech, and this our solemn vow, In fervent love to those our subjects dear, Say Sergeant Major, tell them from ourself, On kingly faith we will perform it there. Now Ask specifically said that this was nothing like her speech, but was rather just the essence of what she said, it was quote in effect what she said, and it's worth noting too that this text is full of known errors in other places. Still even just a quick textual analysis shows that there are some clear links between his version of the Queen's speech and what Sharp would later write, especially the references to Elizabeth as general, to the payments that all troops would receive for their efforts, her willingness to lay down her own life, and her faith in her men. The song by T.I. or T.J. was entitled A Joyful Song of the Royal Receiving of the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, and was printed by John Wolfe, the same man who printed Deloney's work. Stephen W. May, writing in 2004, postulated that its author was a writer by the name of Thomas Johnson. The lyrics say that Being come into the field, A marshal staff my lord did yield, Unto her highness being our shield, And marshal chief of England. Then rode she along the camp to sea, To every captain orderly, Amid the ranks so royally, The marshal chief of England. What princely words her grace declared, What gracious thanks in every ward, To every soldier none she spared, That served anywhere for England. With princely promise none should lack, Meat or drink or cloth for back, Gold and silver should not slack, To her marshal men of England. Again, we see some of the same ideas presented in Sharp's work appear here. Specifically, Elizabeth's promises to pay her men well for their efforts in defending England against the Spanish. Sharp said they would have rewards and crowns, crowns being a type of coin. T.J. said they would have food, clothes, gold and silver. The mention of her marshal staff also echoes Aske's claim that she had a truncheon. Yet another version comes from a sermon given at the end of Elizabeth's reign, but only printed in 1612 by William Lee in his book, Queen Elizabeth Paralleled in Her Princely Virtues with David, Joshua and Hezekiah. He said that Elizabeth was holding a commanding staff in her hand and uttered these or the like words in her princely march. Come on now, my companions-at-arms and fellow soldiers in the field, now for the Lord, for your Queen and for the Kingdom. For what are these proud Philistines that they should revile the host of the living God? I have been your prince in peace, so will I be in war. Neither will I bid you go and fight, but come and let us fight the battle of the Lord. The enemy perhaps may challenge my sex, for that I am a woman. So may I likewise charge their mould, for that they are but men, whose breath is in their nostrils. And if God do not charge England with the sins of England, little do I fear their force. Meaning, if God is with us, who can be against us? Finally, beneath a painting entitled Elizabeth at Tilbury, which is on a wall in the Church of St. Faiths in Gaywood, Norfolk, is another version of the speech which closely mirrors that of William Lee. Susan Fry says that this painting may have been created as late as the early 1600s and it is her transcription of the text which I'm providing for you here. Now for queen and for the kingdom, I have been your queen in peace. In war neither will I bid you go and fight, but come and let us fight the battle of the Lord. For what are these proud Philistines that they should revile the host of the living God? It may be they will challenge my sex, for that I am a woman. So I may charge their mould, for that they are but men, whose breath is in their nostrils. And if God do not charge England with the sins of England, we shall not need to fear what Rome or Spain can do against us. Whom is but an army of flesh, whereas with us is the Lord our God, to fight our battles, and to help I with us that skills not greatly, if all the devils in hell be against us. These final two versions are different enough that they don't seem to be copied from one another, but similar enough that they seem likely to have derived from earlier, now lost accounts of Elizabeth's words, written down by different people. This would make sense if Elizabeth's words were being quickly jotted down by various authors at Tilbury, each of whom favoured slightly different parts of the speech. A modern equivalent would be having a room full of students listening to a lecture and making notes. Those notes will be similar but not exactly the same, and it must have been much harder for anyone writing down Elizabeth's speech, given that she was speaking outdoors to an army, imagine the background noise of horses and men, and any writer would have been limited to a quill, inkpot and piece of parchment, and might have missed certain parts of her oration. Perhaps in light of these difficulties, any original accounts were even written up after the event from memory. However the Lee slash Gaywood versions were collected, given their similarities I'm going to treat them as one speech template. The fact that Lee specifically said that Elizabeth uttered these or the like words indicates that he knew he wasn't getting a perfect version of her speech and didn't want to mislead his audience. It also gave him some wiggle room if people alive at the time, who had seen other accounts of her words, complained that he had misrepresented them. The Lee-Gaywood template also shares a few ideas with the Ask-Deloney or Sharp versions, such as Elizabeth talking about her gender or references to military arms, but these ideas are expressed very differently. Still, Janet M Green feels that this is evidence of the reliability of the Sharp version, though I would say why couldn't Sharp have copied these other versions and put together his own using their ideas and his knowledge of Elizabeth's style? Why did the similarities make him more reliable, rather than the contemporary Ask-Deloney and TJ sources? Green said that he wouldn't have been capable of recreating the Queen's style, but if he knew some of the major points she touched on in this very short speech and was familiar with the real woman and the way in which she expressed herself, I see no reason why over time, and perhaps with some help, he couldn't have created something that convincingly mimicked her. So we have five versions of Elizabeth's words, apparently there's also a later 17th century copy of the Caballas speech in the Public Record Office, but I wasn't able to see that, and they vary greatly in the amount of detail they give and the themes they cover. The Lee-Gaywood versions are the most similar to each other, but there are at least some similarities between all five. Sharpe's is the most popular, but it's actually the last one to appear in the historical record. What conclusions can we draw from this rather messy chain of evidence? What do we think Elizabeth did or didn't say? Well, as Fry points out, and Green agrees, she could have made two separate speeches at separate times during her days-long visit, and so several of the versions I've given you here are more or less correct. Another theory is that just one of these templates is right, and the others are invented. A third is that we are seeing several different remembrances of the same speech or speeches, which now read very differently due to how garble they have become during transmission through several different copyists, but which retain some thematic overlap. The general consensus amongst historians is that the Sharpe version is trustworthy enough, even if it would have been nicer to have an earlier manuscript version of it. Personally, its provenance, coming from someone we know was present at Tilbury, its thematic similarities to contemporary accounts, and the style of the writing make me think that it probably gives us a good sense of what Elizabeth said, though I doubt it's a verbatim account, and Sharpe might have massaged the content of the speech in the letter he sent to Buckingham to suit his own anti-Spanish agenda. I find it odd, too, that he never published it himself, but I suppose there could have been a multitude of reasons for that. As ever, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do you think we can trust the famous Sharpe version of the Tilbury speech, or do you think it's a poor representation of what Elizabeth said? Let me know below, and to hear a discussion of another famous Tudor speech, watch my episode on the death of Anne Boleyn, which includes an analysis of her final words Till next time all, keep learning!