Film Synopsis– ELIZABETH: The Virgin Queen

YEAR OF RELEASE: 1998
GENRE: Drama/History
DIRECTED BY: Shekhar Kapur
STARS: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush

For those of you interested in History

Religion and Politics: Intimate Allies

My movie reviews before this have either been of rom-coms or that of some entertaining fiction. So I thought I'd delve into an informative narrative—a work of nonfiction—this time for a change. Here I have attempted to explore the impact religion had both on politics and personal resolutions of the English and their neighbours in Europe during Elizabeth I’s reign as seen in Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen, a well-researched Shekhar Kapur direction of 1998.

The importance religion had for both the sovereign and its citizens is evident in the concerns the ailing Mary I of England is consumed with in the final days of her life. While she’s shown to be worried sick about the prevalence of her religion after her death, her staunch Catholic subjects’ greatest fear is the English throne being entrusted to her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. Such inhumane acts were committed—owing to their relentless religious beliefs and sheer intolerance towards a faith bearing allegiance to anything other than the Roman Catholic Church—that one would well-nigh doubt the purpose of religion as a path to the Divine. Mary was uncompromisingly against what was termed heresy that she got adherents of Protestantism burnt alive in public to demonstrate the fate of heretics, earning her the title of ‘Bloody Mary’. This ruckus over the unrelenting adherence to faith and intolerance towards the other religion can be seen throughout the film.

Elizabeth as the successor to the throne, however, was tolerant towards both religions, and did not feel the need to impose any religious faith until she discovered that her own countrymen were divided and would not support her because she was still considered a heretic. Their allegiance towards Catholicism was so strong that they didn’t hesitate to even defy their Queen. This was when she thought it appropriate to legitimize her religious affiliation and end fragmentation; she proposed the Act of Uniformity as a solution. In contrast to that, the Bishops put forth the idea of her marriage as a cure to end all domestic troubles, mostly because both her main suitors—the King of Spain and the Duke of Anjou—were of Catholic faith, and restoration and prevalence of Catholicism in England would have been an inevitable consequence of such an alliance. She is known to have deferred the subject of marriage to a later time, appealing that it was a matter demanding great consideration and advice, and that the future of her subjects depended on who she took as her husband. While she assured her people that she would take into account the interests and safety of her subjects more than her own when considering marriage, this circumstance asserts that religious politics did not spare the lives of those amounting to public value—“Her Majesty’s body and person are no longer her own property; they belong to the State”, William Cecil, one of her ministers, is seen voicing decisively in the film.

Though she had won the argument and the Act of Uniformity had been passed, the Pope in the Vatican, the headquarter of the Roman Catholic Church, was bent on subversion of Queen Elizabeth owing to his steadfast Catholicism and refusing to view Elizabeth as anybody other than an illegitimate heretic—the pretended Queen of England. He went to the extreme of inviting the assassination of the Queen absolving her subjects of their allegiance to her. The letter from the Pope authorizing her killing was brought ashore and was meant to reach the people that meant her harm. It was especially consequential for the Duke of Norfolk who, behind the veil of religion, was playing his own politics– he wanted to rule England and found religion to be a great fulcrum to realize his coveted ambitions. This is a classic example of how politics is played and accomplished by virtue of religion– predicating on the public’s emotion towards their faith and maneuvering it to one’s political advantage.

The Duke of Norfolk’s game of politics—double-crossing the Spanish while conspiring with the Scottish—lends an inescapable complexity of angles and motives to the plot that it becomes nearly impossible to decipher the development of affairs even with respect to just one character's objective, all the more so because there is never just one character.

Talking of politics, they also attempted to influence the Queen’s decisions and stately affairs on the grounds of her gender apart from all that was being plotted against her. She was continually expected to heed her ministers’ advice for all bureaucratic matters, and not go by her own instinct or conscience, for she was “just a woman”. Regardless of the patriarchal dominance she constantly found herself subjected to, she refused to be merely a figurehead, and survived a time which was cruel enough to crush any woman. She claimed that she had the heart of a man, and demonstrated it with the greatest resolve and an astute sense of governance, refusing to be dictated by the men of her court. 

The film is a must-watch, for it is thoroughly researched and informative, and does more than just acquaint the viewers with Elizabeth's reign– it inspires; it is not for no reason that hers is referred to as "the golden age" in the British history!