Good Queen Bess

It’s the first week of a new semester, and I’m still working on my Salem book for imminent submission, so I have to admit that I don’t have much time or energy to post here. But it’s also coronation week for Queen Elizabeth I (in 1559) and I’ve come across a lovely children’s book which has captured my teaching imagination—why these scenes? why these stories? Sometimes the blog is a nice break from pressing responsibilities, and that is the case here. Good Queen Bess (1907) is a quarto containing 23 illustrations by the artist John Hassall and text in red by Miss Brenda Girvin. The visuals are striking in their color and context, with some editorial choices immediately apparent (of course we need to see Sir Walter Ralegh’s puddle-covering cloak) while others are a bit more elusive, but all portray the iconic queen as a person first and foremost, beginning with her childhood.

It’s a children’s book, so it might be a bit jarring to depict the young princess alone, as the orphan she was. Instead, she’s with her longtime companion Kat Ashley, cuddling by a fire with dog and toys nearby. Years later, her situation more precarious during her sister Mary’s reign, she is “imprisoned” at Woodstock, with Ashley and more dogs nearby. Not too scary, but still an experience that will shape the young Elizabeth. Somehow her character got her out of that situation, and she is next pictured accompanying Queen Mary at her entrance into London, echoing another entrance image in Parliament. Hassall misses a great opportunity to show the poignancy of the moment in which Elizabeth is informed of her sister’s death and her own ascendance at Hatfield, depicting her in a crowd rather than alone under the venerable oak tree of legend. At this moment, and again at her coronation, Elizabeth’s profile is that of the majestic mature Queen in white (with “wings”) rather than the young woman that she actually was, with her hair down. As Queen, she has to have that majestic look, whether she is stepping on Ralegh’s cloak, dancing (as she loved to do), receiving the famous authors of her reign (Shakespeare and Bacon), refusing the crown/title offered by Dutch emissaries at war with Spain (an odd choice for a children’s book) or addressing her troops at Tilbury with her “heart and stomach of a king” speech.

Elizabeth is defined by her own personal characteristics and experiences but she also represents a “Golden” Age so we must see some scenes without her: a man in stocks represents her policy towards “tramps” (better known as “masterless men” in her own era), reluctant Elizabethans cultivate the potato (perfect, this is my favorite illustration, although cultivation began long after introduction), and then of course we must see the glorious defeat of the Spanish Armada, a fitting finale.