Note 186 — Chapter X · The Virtues and Vices of Women

Not a little even of our “Good” Queen Bess’s success as a ruler was due to her unlimited capacity for lies. Speaking of Queen Elizabeth, J. R. Green in his Short History of the English People, says: “Ignoble, inexpressibly wearisome as the Queen’s diplomacy seems to us now, tracing it as we do through a thousand despatches, it succeeded in its main end. It gained time, and every year that was gained doubled Elizabeth’s strength. Nothing is more revolting in the Queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom.” (Chap. VII. Section III.) And later on in the same chapter he says: “As we track Elizabeth through her tortuous mazes of lying and intrigue, the sense of her greatness is almost lost in a sense of contempt.” Even her most distinguished minister, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, was a most incorrigible liar and rascal.