Elizabeth

Shekar Kapur did an outstanding job bringing the history of Elizabeth, one of England’s greatest monarchs, to the screen in a modern way. Yet to understand Elizabeth’s rise to power, one must understand the reign of her family. Her father, Henry VIII, at the time a Catholic, was famous not only for his reign but also for marrying six wives. While married to his first wife, Catherine, only one of their seven children survived, Mary Tudor. Wanting to produce a male heir and for the sake of convenience, Henry became Protestant. He became Protestant because he wanted to divorce Catherine, and in the Catholic religion you were not allowed to do so. And so with his second wife, Anne Boleyn, they gave birth to Elizabeth I. With still no son, he moved on to the next wife to give birth to Edward VI.

When Edward VI became king, he followed in his father’s footsteps allowing Protestants to continue practicing freely. After his unexpected death, Mary, who was a committed Catholic, ascended the throne. Turning England back into a Catholic country, she obtained the name “Bloody Mary” due to her unkind acts of killing those who did not practice Catholicism. During her four year reign, men and women of all ages were burned at stake for being Protestant. After the passing of Mary, Elizabeth I took the throne bringing the country to a Protestant ground, which they called Church of England. This common ground was set by Elizabeth’s father. The movie Elizabeth expresses the idea that religion causes conflict in all aspects of life.

Elizabeth begins with a gruesome, stomach-turning scene in which three bold Protestants are burned at stake by the order of the Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke). The public display of these three Protestants, who were dressed in white ragged clothing and had just been scalped. Those who did not follow Catholicism were burned alive. Catholics believed in transubstantiation, which is when the Eucharist becomes the body and blood of Christ and reflects the supremacy of the Pope. Protestants believed that transubstantiation was more of a symbolic act, and that they definitely denied the pope’s supremacy. Without freedom of religion in the 1500’s, a minuscule

change in religious beliefs and Christian denominations caused turmoil in the country.

Living in a time period where religion was a crucial factor, Elizabeth had very little worries as Princess.

The next large scale catastrophe in the movie was when Scotland and England go to war in 1559. Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett) follows a general policy of avoiding involvement in major continental wars, but she cannot stay out of this one because her land was at stake. Her counsel, the majority of which consists of Catholics, urges her to make a decision. Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Ecclesston), a contender for the throne, is left in charge to make a final decision. In the middle of the movie, the viewer is shown a clip of the ending of the war; Scotland has won. The small rivers have turned red from all the open wounds of the soldiers and hundreds are lying dead in a big field across Mary of Guise’s estate. In that scene Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardant), Queen of Scotland, walks out to find one of England’s Protestant boys struggling to rise to his feet in English blood. Mary of Guise walks slowly up to his side and wipes his blood on a blue cloth, which represents the Scottish flag. She asks the boy to give that cloth to his queen. The scene ends with Mary of Guise saying, “English blood on French colours, that will teach her to send young boys to war.” Protestant men as well as Protestant children were being sent to fight the war and risk their lives because Catholics did not want to send their reinforcements to fight for a Protestant Queen, thus causing untrained children to die.

Elizabeth’s