Who wrote Elizabeth I's most scathing letters? | Hacker News Reader

Who wrote Elizabeth I's most scathing letters?

smithsonianmag.com

49 pointsbenbreen24 comments

The podcast "The Rest is History" did a series in the past year on Elizabeth I. Highly recommended, and their take is highly compatible with this research take -- Elizabeth seems to have been quite masterful and deliberate both in her choice of what she would communicate, and in composing and marshalling her team.

Yes, that podcast series is excellent. Elizabeth was lucky in having an excellent team of people working for her. Their lives depended on keeping her alive of course. They were also lucky that she didn't inherit her father's habit of decapitating the most able ministers.

Any time you see a female monarch who's in power for half a century, it's worth looking into, because you're gonna see a beautiful story about how to wield power. When you can't rely on being able to physically overpower your opponents directly - when "I'm the biggest guy in the room, so fuck you" isn't in your toolkit - anyone who gets and keeps power does so by some really, really sharp tactics.

(and yeah, napoleon, et al, but those are in the same vein - short guy runs the world, probably an interesting story there too.)

Her half-sister's story wasn't so beautiful ...

She wasn't in power very long though.

And then Elizabeth had the example of Bloody Mary to avoid (not least of which: to not marry is better than to marry badly). "I have no desire to make windows into men's souls" is one of the wiser things any English monarch has ever said.

Mary only executed ~300 people.

Elizabeth was in the thousands.

https://www.history.com/articles/queen-mary-i-bloody-mary-re...

It was about a thousand or less. That means on average Mary executed about 60 people per year, and Elizabeth about 20.

Mary mostly executed people for heresy, only a small minority were for treason. With Elizabeth the majority were rebels and traitors.

At the level of monarchs, personal physical strength rarely matters regardless of gender anyway. Occasionally it is useful to be able to overpower an adversary in a fight, but that's only either when you risk being assassinated, or you want to assassinate somebody else. Other than those situations, it's just political games all the way. (And like another commenter says, it's usually not "beautiful")

Sure, but who does the physical violence, and why isn't that guy in charge? That's the question - all power comes from the barrel of a gun, so why's the person in charge walking around unarmed?

Elizabeth ruled England for 50 years and is remembered fondly for building a global empire (by the English, don't get me wrong), and she was a woman. Yes, it's all relationships, that's the point.

Thats absurd. Physical prowess may help influce others to follow you but outside small tribe level interpersonal relationships simply being the strongest person or best swordsman is hardly the required quality of a leader.

The strongest guy isn't in charge of the kingdom because the queen has an army.

https://globalnetwork.io/perspectives/2020/10/luck-bluff

"In his 2005 bestselling book Blink, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell noted a seemingly bizarre fact about his work with Fortune 500 leaders. “In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more striking, in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men are six foot two or taller. Among my CEO sample, almost a third were six foot two or taller.”"

You’re misreading me. I’m agreeing with you.

Napoleon was actually average height for the time period and locality. Claims he was especially short were English propaganda that got accepted and survived to the modern day. He was actually 5'6 (168cm).

That’s funny, because the increase in stature for males in the modern day has resulted in 5’6” being “short king” territory today (no pun intended)

So it’s simultaneously true that he was “only 5’6”” and false that he was short for his time.

This is all covered quite well in the documentary "Blackadder II".

Napoleon was hardly short for his time, that was just English propaganda. Most of the human world today, 5’6-5’8 still represents most of the male population I’m only 6’-4 and most of the male population, even at that relatively tall height, don’t come close, and when I meet someone that is close in height or even taller it’s still a shock.

Back in the day when a strongly worded letter actually carried some weight….

I suspect the author having the authority to execute people on a whim may have contributed somewhat

I always try to insinuate this possibility in mine, but it doesn’t seem to work the same.

Have you tried being Queen of England by grace of God?

Yes, but I married a racist German and my sons all ended up being emotionally stunted perverts. Maybe I'll try a different God next time.

Yes, yes I have. That also doesn’t seem to work.

If you think a strongly worded letter dosn't carry some weight, you are clearly writing the wrong letters to the wrong people.

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