The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.
— Letters
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603, the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign gave its name to the Elizabethan era.
She was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When she was two, her parents' marriage was annulled, her mother was executed and she was declared illegitimate, though Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10. After the deaths of her half-brother Edward VI and the brief rule of Lady Jane Grey, her Catholic half-sister Mary became queen, and during Mary's reign Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year. Her Collected Works is her most quoted work in our library.
She was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When she was two, her parents' marriage was annulled, her mother was executed and she was declared illegitimate, though Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10. After the deaths of her half-brother Edward VI and the brief rule of Lady Jane Grey, her Catholic half-sister Mary became queen, and during Mary's reign Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year. Her Collected Works is her most quoted work in our library.
Most quoted works
- Collected Works 4
If we still advise we shall never do.
— Collected Works
If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.
— Collected Works
[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.
— Collected Works
The past can not be cured.
I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.
Life is for living and working at. If you find anything or anybody a bore, the fault is in yourself.
I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything.
Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states.