Elizabeth

Summary

[Statecraft, combined with the ideas of salus populi suprema lex esto, was taken for granted in Bayle's day as well as in the sixteenth century. In ‘Elizabeth’, as in his articles ‘Machiavelli’ and ‘David’, Bayle defends the notion of raison d'état, but he warns against supposing that it may support any act whatsoever. For subjects are rightly shocked if they learn that rulers have acted from motives of self-interest. In Remarks (F) and (I), Bayle asks if Elizabeth was wise in 1558 to choose Protestantism as the official religion in England. He concludes that she acted to avoid civil war, and that therefore she took the correct decision for the times. Yet he does not overlook the effect, in 1688, of the memory of this policy. For Elizabeth's action could have precipitated the consequence that James II's promise to uphold the Protestant religion inspired no confidence at all among Protestants, thereby causing them to decide that he must be replaced.]

Elizabeth, queen of England, daughter of king Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn, is one of the most illustrious figures recorded in history. To say that no woman did more gloriously wield the sceptre would not do her sufficient justice, unless we add that few great monarchs have been her equal [(A)]. Her reign provides the choicest part in the finest era of English history, for it was a school in which many great statesmen [(B)] were raised, so much so that England could never boast of more.