MovieChat Forums > Elizabeth I (2006) Discussion > Shocked by true Elizabeth

Shocked by true Elizabeth


I have watched three different versions of Queen Elizabeth I: Elizabeth the movie that won an Oscar, Elizabeth by Helen Mirren and Elizabeth by Ann Marie Duff. Right before I watched Elizabeth by Helen Mirren, I highly admire Queen Elizabeth for her courage, dedication and a political vision beyond many monarchs her time. But after I have seen it, my image of her is largely tarnished.

From watching some of the graphic violence in the movie, especially like hanging, live drawing and quartering of "traitors", it really disturbed me to know that Elizabeth personally ordered this kind of punishment against anyone. I feel sick when I watch Elizabeth watching someone getting his hand chopped off for writing against her marriage to Duke of Anjou. She must be either really cruel or mentally sick......

Also, even though she claimed she gave up her own happiness like marriage or children to prevent wars and to serve England wholeheartedly, it seems to me her agenda may only be getting more power and control as the queen.

She seems so HIDEOUS!

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Ina_Inc, take heart, I too wonder about some of the more extreme sides to her nature that are recorded in history and are apparently true -- although I tend to take virtually everything with a large grain of salt! I'm one of those eternal cynics who believe that accounts of certain events or people are inevitably subject to the personal agendas of those passing on the information.

Having said that, within what IS passed along, well, keep in mind that the time Elizabeth lived in and ruled over were bloody times in general. Life was cheap and unfortunately people dealt with each other brutally, and since this was the way of things, we can't really stand in judgement against Bess for being a person of her times.

If you would like to read some excellent and informative assessments of Elizabeth, posted by some folks who came to answer a post of mine about the truth of her more outrageous reported behavior, read through "This Emotional? Bess Expert Needed" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465326/board/nest/41773208

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[deleted]

Of course these type of executions would be shocking and appalling to someone raised in a time period where electrocution, gassing, or lethal injection is the harshest punishment upheld by the law. During Elizabeth's reign such things were a part of every day life. Had she not order such things she would have been considered even more weak than people already perceived as because she was a woman.

Women are compassionate by nature but Elizabeth could not be a "woman" in any sense of the word beyond marriage. To do so would have cost her more than just her crown.

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Indeed, stuff as that was very much part of the culture of that era. George Washington is regarded as a great man but he also was a slave owner. That was sadly part of the culture in which he lived.


"A real man would rather bow down to a strong woman than dominate a weak one"

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You have to remember in that day public exucution and torture was completely normal. Elizabeth could be quite merciful, you see in this miniseries after the exucution of the earl of essex she says' Send his lapdog little Southampton to the tower,no more blood please god no more blood. I shall spare the others where I can'. Saying that it is also true she ordered some horrific deaths. Also shown in this miniseries is Elizabeths quicksliver moodchanges. She often ordered exucutions in her rage but then she would regret many of them afterwards.

In comparison to her sister Elizabeth was very merciful. Her sister became known as 'Bloody Mary' for the gruesome deaths she bestoded upon protestants , hundreds of protestents were killed during her reign by her orders and in a very gruesome fashion.


Oh my god you're so BLAH-Will and Grace

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And in further comparison, there was very few execution during Elizabeth's reign. You said you saw "Elizabeth the movie that won an Oscar", yet that film also had gory executions scenes in the very end (head on the spike) but that didn't bother you???

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Why would it? An axe to the back of the neck is far faster and more merciful than a hanging (just long enough to let you be strangled), then disemboweled on a bloody table, THEN drawn and quartered. I'm surprised that Mary of Scotland didn't get a sword - weren't they supposed to be faster and the prerogative of royalty?

I'm thinking, didn't she only use the full sentence of treason maybe 3 or 4 times? I think she might have sentenced men to death but commuted their sentences to only beheading or hanging. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Bloody Mary is known for burning to death something like 300 people, one was even a pregnant woman which caused a HUGE uproar and increased dislike of her in the end. And those were just the Protestants, were any regular criminals included in that number? A decade of rule (if that, I can't remember exactly), 300 people dead from a religious argument alone. And it intensified whenever she felt that god required a boon - she needed to be pregnant, her troops needed a victory, etc. no wonder the Englishmen's love faded quickly.

My two cents.

Nort


He's got a TOWEL![runs away]

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> decade of rule (if that, I can't remember exactly), 300 people dead from a religious argument alone.

Mary ruled for just 5 years. And it is true that there were a lot less executions in Elizabethean time.

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Sorry, I haven't kept up on the trio's ruling years. I think Edward was for 7, you say Mary for 5, and Elizabeth for 45.

But again, I'm not checking and this is just from memory. And no kidding, 300 in 5 years is a bit much if there's not a HUGE uprising, at least in my idea of justification.

Nort

He's got a TOWEL![runs away]

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Not only that, but Washington crossed the delaware to murder British soldier while they slept on Christmas.

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She was a tudor, and they were a blood thirsty lot. She acted as any queen would have during that time, it shouldn't overshadow her achievements.

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Even a kind ruler needs to prove a point so they can be respected

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A Kind Ruler?

Ha! What a joke. She may have treated her own English subjects somewhat kindly (the term is relative), but in occupied Ireland she was plain and simple, a bloodthirsty tyrant.

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What did you expect punishment in that century to consist of or were you too busy judging other periods on the ethics and viewpoint of your own?

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I'm surprise no one brought up the fact that her father is just as brutal as she is. After all, Henry VIII executed her mother, his fourth wife and many others including his sister's husband. The Tudors were one of the most brutal and political animals of the whole English Royal ascession. It was a way of life. She probably eventually realize that men only wants her throne and not her heart, that she became bitter and used them just as they try to use her. "Off with his/her head" became a breakfast menu every morning. lol.

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Henry VIII also decreed and enforced laws that people who were moving about without work and "refusing to go home to their village" (the place where they came from) could be tortured or hanged for the mere fact of being around. There was massive unemplyment, and often blight and hunger, in the English vciountryside at the time, due to small land lots and leases being hauled in and restructured by the nonbility, so a lot of people were forced to get moving. This isn't prominent in history books either.

This tv series sounds absolutely superb. Just heard about it on the BBC, as Dame Helen Mirren won a Golden Globe award for the title part, and I have to get it.

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Im sure some hundred years or so from now they will make movies and/or documentaries about todays great democratic leaders and people of the future will be shocked over how repulsively cruel their behavior has been.

Some democratic nations still excersize death penalty for various crimes against the nation, japan for example hangs people convicted for treason. America is also turning more and more into a facist lead state, people being watched over and treated as possible terrorist without any real evidence. Theres laws that doesnt disallow torture and murder as interrogation method outside of us borders. Its a dangerous world when our free world leaders resort to the methods used by their enemies...

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote "He who fights with monsters should be careful, lest he thereby become a monster", I think that applies to a lot of us today.

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She was hideous! At least to the people that she didn't like. Glad that the mini-series shows some of that. From a female perspective I'll admit that she was a formidable woman; one of the most formidable women in Western European history, but that still didn't make her a kind or highly merciful ruler.

Elizabeth played a major role in my country (Ireland's) history. Ireland has only in the past century been able to recover from the horrible oppression that Elizabeth in particular heaped on the 'barbaric' Irish people. That 'lovely' woman turned a sizeable amount of Ireland into estates for English subjects while the Irish were either shoved off to the rockier lands of the west or were abused and mistreated as tenants for good Protestant subjects. Okay so she didn't create all the plantations even though she ruled for 45 years (1558-1603) but she set the work in motion and within 40 years of her death Ireland was completely subjected to the oppression of the English. I wonder if she even bothered to visit Ireland to get a taste of her laws being put into practice. That probably would've been too much effort for a monarch.

Elizabeth was a stern and in many ways effective ruler, but I don't agree that many of her actions while she was on the throne were justified. She's a fascinating woman to study from a psychological aspect, which might explain the number of productions about her life, but you can't avoid her ruthless, uncompromising nature.

Hector Barbossa; now that's a pirate!

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ah yes! the "real" dracula! he was a horrible man.

& what about the crusaders? the knights templar? all those holy wars that left the land covered in dead bodies & blood?

another bad time was during jesus time. crucifixtions & all. makes one wonder...why didnt god wait til a...er...gentler time to come & save us? i mean...so long as he did eventually come here, does it really matter when? he could of waited for a more humane executional idea like the american lethal injection or something. guess he just wanted to get it over with...*shrugs*

Remember: Amateurs-built the ark. Professionals-built the Titanic

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What about the muslims--even to the present day? Beheading helpless school girls and POWs with dull knives, the overall oppression of women, "honor crimes" that make it ok to kill your daughter or sister for being the victim of rape; genital mutilations, the killing of other muslims who decide for whatever reason not to follow the muslim faith, using babies to blow up cars and markets, killing innocent people including children on airplanes by exploding them into buildings? At least the crusades were hundreds of years ago, what excuse for these 21st century barbarians? Heaven help us all from this "religion of peace".

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What about the muslims--even to the present day? Beheading helpless school girls and POWs with dull knives, the overall oppression of women, "honor crimes" that make it ok to kill your daughter or sister for being the victim of rape; genital mutilations, the killing of other muslims who decide for whatever reason not to follow the muslim faith, using babies to blow up cars and markets, killing innocent people including children on airplanes by exploding them into buildings? At least the crusades were hundreds of years ago, what excuse for these 21st century barbarians? Heaven help us all from this "religion of peace".


ariamne, you have to be completely ignorant if you believe that all Muslims are barbaric. Atrocities have been committed in the name of countless religions throughout history; and these atrocities shock the actual religious. Those who carry out violence in the sake of their religion are not religious and should not been used as representatives for that faith. The genuinely faithful are always appalled and insulted by their actions. If a Christian commits a terrible crime and claims they do it for Christianity then it is obvious that their actions are that loony individual’s choice and nothing do to with that faith. That is precisely the same with Islam. Most Muslims throughout the world despise these appalling acts being committed in their name.

Your simple views are obviously the product of the media you are subjected too; the West’s media portrays a very biased view of Muslims and the Middle East. Most people from the Middle East dislike being connected to suicide bombers. Most Muslims in Iraq do not attack American and British soldiers. And you write of Muslims torturing POW; what about the abuse civilians have received from some American and British soldiers? Neither side is perfect and most from each side do not engage in such barbarities.

An element of Islam is not beheading school girls and committing 'honour killings'. These are the policies of men who use religion as their excuse to carry out such horrific acts. Some of my friends who are female and Muslims are extremely proud of their faith and are not under their father's rule. Many Muslim women are deeply offended when ignorant people go around asserting that they are oppressed – in some parts of the world they are, and that does anger me, but this is not a product of religion but of culture (although those in power pretend that what they are doing is religious).

Terrorists claim that what they do is in the name of religion, buts it’s really all about politics and power. If we are going to start saying that all Muslims are terrorists, which you so ignorantly argue, then shall we just start calling all Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland terrorists because of their traditional alliance with nationalists parties who in turn have links with paramilitary groups? And what about the Catholic church who throughout history has committed atrocities. Shall we start to victimise Catholics because of the actions of individuals throughout history?

Heaven help us from people like you, who feel the need to victimise groups of people in society. It was individuals like you who terrorised normal Muslims in their daily lives after 9/11 and 7/7/05. Why don’t you actually pick up the Koran and engage in a conversation with a Muslim before coming out with such offensive drivel.




We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs - Syrus

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ARIAMNE:

watch it girl/dude/whatever! ive got a muslim friend & he doesnt agree with stuff like that "honor killing duaghters" & all. its not muslims that are like that. most of them are nice individuals who would just like to go about tehre lives.

its the ones in power that may use the religion as an excuse. it has nothing to do with the true faithful muslims who are actually rather nice people. wierd though with the turban wearing & all on hot days...lol...but nice.

also, most of the guys the drive the delivery trucks to the store i work at are muslim people. they're really nice to.

Remember: Amateurs-built the ark. Professionals-built the Titanic

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"A prince should never flinch from being blamed for acts of ruthlessness which are necessary for safe guarding the state and their own person."

"Sweet? I am not sweet! I am dark and mysterious and pissed off!"

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It was all part of the culture. This apparent barbarity started way before Elizabeth came on the scene nor did it stop after her reign. This started around 1351 all the way through 1814 (see below)

http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hdq.html and

though the Act of Parliament that defined high treason remains on the United Kingdom's statute books, hanging, drawing and quartering was in 1814 downgraded to drawing, hanging until dead, and posthumous beheading and quartering. It was finally abolished in England in 1870.

The Colonists brought the tradition to the United States as well. (Google King Philip's War)

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