Elizabeth I

7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603

Queen of England, occasional poet.

 

I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God that I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place in Christendom.

Speech to Parliament, 5 November 1566

 

I know what it is to be a subject, and what to be a Sovereign, what to have good neighbours, and sometimes meet evil-willers.

12 November 1586

 

I will have here but one Mistress, and no Master.

Said to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

 

I know I have 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.

Speech at Tilbury, 1588

 

Better a beggarwoman and single than a queen and married.

 

If thy heart fails the, climb not at all.

Scratched on a window in reply to Walter Raleigh (I feign would climb, yet fear to fall)

 

The past cannot be cured.

 

Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind.

 

Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not tested.

 

I do consider a multitude doth make rather discord and confusion than good counsel.

Explaining her decision to keep her Privy Council small

 

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

Letter to Henry Sidney, 1565

 

I will never be by violence constrained to do anything.

 

I have no desire to make windows into mens' souls.

 

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