Christina Figlus's "Our emperor and empresse:" How Queen Elizabeth I's complex gender identity allowed her to appropriate the image of the Christian divineis one of the 14 pieces that comprises the Senior Essay Edition of The Yale Historical Review.

1. ueen Elizabeth I of England is only one of
many remarkable women who exercised
power throughout the male-dominated his-
tory of Western Europe; yet her fame as a monarch is
unparalleled, even when compared to many of her male
contemporaries. Why does she figure so prominently in
history and in the popular imagination? Part of the an-
swer to this question lies in a description of the Queen
by Nicholas Heath, the Archbishop of York, who wrote
of the Queen in 1588, “a woman by birthe and nature …
by appointment of God she is our soveraigne lord and
ladie, our kinge and quene, our emperor and empresse.”1
Heath’s sentiments demonstrate the complexity of Eliza-
beth’s relationship to sex and gender, and the relationship
of this part of her identity to her position as England’s
ruler. Thoughherfemalesexdictatedthatsheinhabitthe
roleofQueen,Lady,andEmpress,Elizabethalsoinhabit-
ed the roles of King, Lord, and Emperor.
To her people during her own lifetime, and thus to
moderns by inheritance, Elizabeth embodied much
more than the average monarch. Elizabeth was unpar-
alleled not because she was a woman monarch, but be-
cause she was quite nearly deified2
during her reign. The
title emperor in this case appears the most appropriate
way to describe Elizabeth, for conceptually she embod-
ied the same form of ruler as that of the Roman imper-
ator: a monarch with divine significance, a priest-king.
Heath’s description of Elizabeth thus clearly illustrates
the complexity of Elizabeth’s identity, but especially her
human-divine nature. The relationship between Eliza-
beth’s dual human and divine natures was symbiotic: her
complex identity enabled a perception of the Queen as
semi-divine, while her quasi-divinity allowed these log-
ically inconsistent identities to coexist within her own
“Our emperor and empresse”
This essay was the winner of the Jonathan Edwards College Henry Edwards Ellsworth Humanities Prize
by Christina Figlus JE’20
Advised by Professor Carlos Eire
1 Nicholas Heath; found in Levin, Carole. 2013. The Heart And Stomach Of A King: Elizabeth I and The Politics Of Sex and
Power. 2nd ed. (originally published 1994) University of Pennsylvania Press p. 121
2 The terms deification and apotheosis are used to suggest that Elizabeth was portrayed as god-like, and that she was believed to
share certain qualities with the Christian divine, but not that she was actually treated or considered to be a god.
ABSTRACT
How Queen Elizabeth I’s complex gender identity allowed her to
appropriate the image of the Christian divine
body. Elizabeth’s monarchy ventured farther into the
realm of the divine than any of her predecessors by ap-
propriatinganoverwhelmingamountofChristiandivine
imagery. The combined power of the Christian images
used in the Cult of Elizabeth worked to create an aura of
holiness and divinity around the monarch.
The near-apotheosis of Elizabeth was far from acci-
dental – indeed, it was an intentional strategy used by
Elizabeth I and her government to amass power for the
monarchy and to prevent it from attack by engendering
a cult of the Queen. Elizabeth’s government manipulat-
ed her complex identities, employing them in a grand
scheme to elevate Elizabeth to the position of a divinized
monarch. The Queen’s reputation as exceptional among
monarchs testifies to the lasting impact of this effort.
Elizabeth’s complex and paradoxical relationship to sex
and gender, coupled with the implications of medieval
and early modern theories of monarchy, allowed the
Queen to access an abundance of Christian religious im-
agery. The paradox of the Queen’s many identities was
instrumental in her portrayal as godlike. In the process
ofmakingtheQueenintoasemi-divinebeing,Elizabeth’s
propagandistsmadeherintoamartyr,andcomparedher
to biblical figures, the Virgin Mary, and even Christ him-
self. The deification of Elizabeth transcended this sym-
bolism, too, and extended into the worship of both her
physical body and her image, blurring the lines between
humananddivineevenfurtherthantheconceptofmon-
archy did already. Creating this image of Elizabeth filled
an emotional and spiritual gap for an English population
in transition from Catholicism to Anglicanism.
Q
Senior Thesis Edition