Queen Elizabeth 1.

The Golden Age took place in the mid 1500s and lasted until the early 1600s. It is not only a period known for its great amount of new art and literature in Europe. Many names from The Golden Age are still remembered today, and play important parts in our history and cultures. One of them is Queen Elizabeth 1. She was the first woman to become queen in England, and she was very popular during her reign. Later on we can see that she had a strong similarity to her father, king Henry 8; they both seemed to have very divided personalities.
Queen Elizabeth 1. was born in 1533, and was the daughter of King Henry 8. and Anne Boleyn. When she became queen she continued the protestant reformation in England, which her father had started. She was very clever in her way of making decisions and controlling the country, both because she was of great intelligence herself and because she had many councillors with good knowledge and years of experience. One of her achievements during her reign was that she conquered Spain when Filip 2. of Spain sent the Spanish Armada to attack England in 1588.
Elizabeth died in 1603, unmarried. There might be many reasons to why she did not marry; she knew what had happened to her father’s wives, and was aware of the women’s position in a marriage. She was not willing to give away her power, and if she married, her husband would become king and she would no longer be in charge. By not producing an heir she was also less vulnerable for a coup. However, she kept the question about marriage open, to use it as a weapon of diplomacy. It was bait she used against France and Spain, maybe to keep peace in times of conflicts. The lack of a husband did not seem to bother her, and though she was called “The Virgin Queen”, she might not have been a virgin at all. Actually it is said that she had a great appetite for men, just like her father had an appetite for women. Whether this is true or not she could certainly do whatever she wanted behind closed doors. After all, she was the Queen of England.

Like her father, I think Queen Elizabeth 1. had two sides to her personality that were exposed in different settings. In public she gave the impression of having lots of self-confidence.
Determination and strength was required to be a steady ruler. Without it, it was probably easy to get tricked and manipulated by “very helpful” people in the royal circle. The world has never lacked power-seeking people, and many would take any sign of weakness as an opportunity to approach her. Elizabeth however never gave this people a chance since she seemed to have both the determination and the strength. This was her outside appearance, and it probably calmed the people because it looked like she knew what she was doing. The only weakness she could not hide was that she was a woman, and at the time this was defined as a weakness. But because she was so intelligent she managed to stay in a position which in generally was dominated by men. She was actually the most educated woman in the country at the time, and could speak several languages fluently. All of this must mean that she was deeply respected by people, both women and men.

In private on the other hand, I will guess Elizabeth did not wear that brave mask all the time. On the inside she was probably both worried and unsure of many things, both important matters related to the kingdom, and more personal problems. The responsibility of ruling the country and stating a good example could not have been easy, even if she got help from councillors. I would guess that she carried a feeling of loneliness during her life which no court could cure. In the film “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” made in 2007, there are a few scenes where the queen reveals her vulnerable sides. She is worried and sad, and asks a wise fortune teller for advice. This is hardly anything she would have done in public. Maybe she had one of these moments when she executed her half-sister and rival Mary? Mary was accused of treason and sentenced to death. This decision could be looked upon as completely inhuman, just like king Henry 8. decision of executing his own wife and Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. For some time Elizabeth did not want to sign the death warrant, the case was obviously very difficult for her since Mary was her half-sister. But eventually she did it, after a lot of pressure from her ministers.

As a conclusion we may say that both of the different sides of the queen’s personality leaded her to success, as we can assume that it takes a bit of each one of them to rule a country fairly. Maybe her private worries made her consider different options and opinions, and not make important decisions to hasty? Her councillors must have had many suggestions to how to solve different matters, like for instance the invasion of the Spanish Armada. The victory was surely a result of discussion and good planning. This way to handle things proved itself very wise, since it might be one of the reasons to why Queen Elizabeth 1. managed to manoeuvre so brilliantly through the Golden Age.

Sources:
- The film “Elizabeth 1: The Golden Age”
- Store Norske Leksikon
- Wikipedia
- The textbook “Access”

Segregation after the Civil War

As we all know slavery was very commom in North America during the age of colony. People from Africa were brutally kidnapped and transported to North America to become slaves. Because of growing trade, industry and self-sufficiency in the North, the slavery there gradually started to fade. After the Civil War the slavery was gone in the North, but it remained in the South. As the South was occupied by the North for some time, the North made efforts to give the blacks in the South their civil rights, protect them and provide them with skills so they could start new lives as free and independent people. But this was not easy, as the South had a lot to deal with after the war already, and the whites wanted to keep the power. When the Northern troops grew tired of the effort and the Southern states regained self-gouvernment, they gradually separated the races and took away the civil rights of the blacks. This was the beginning of a new period of rasism, which was going to last for many years.

The segregation that followed was, in addition to the will to keep control, based on fear. The whites were afraid of a free black population and what the consequences of it might become in the society. They imagined that the blacks would rape white women, terrorice their former masters and ruin the economy. The Southern legislatures therefore made laws to control the African American people. The laws, or the Black Codes as they are called, meant several limilitations for the black people. Everyone of them had to sign labor contracts, they were not allowed to own land, whites could physically abuse them as much as they wanted whitout getting punishments, and interracial marriage was forbidden.