Carole Levin is the the Willa Cather Professor of History and Director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at the University of Nebraska She is the author or editor of 16 books, including The Heart and Stomach of a King, Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power, The Reign of Elizabeth I, Dreaming the English Renaissance, and, most recently, the edited collection, Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens. She was senior historical consultant on the Newberry Library exhibit, Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend, and in 2015 was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of York in England.
When I was ten, I chose a book about Queen Elizabeth I. This truly changed my life
We invited her to write about her background and play The Life of Elizabeth I in Her Own Words.
When I was a child growing up in America, I was quiet and shy. The highpoint of my week was when my mother would take me to the public library. I was drawn to the shelf that had historical biographies aimed at children. When I was ten, I chose a book about Queen Elizabeth I. This truly changed my life. After that I loved to read and study about Elizabeth and her times. I was so impressed by her bravery, by how she managed to defend herself in such stressful and dangerous times in the reigns of her brother Edward and her sister Mary. I was fascinated that from the age of 25 she effectively ruled England alone and unmarried.
I knew that I would grow up to be a historian. And I completely got over my shyness as I loved to teach, research and write about Elizabeth. It is wonderful to introduce the queen to people through the theatre. And I am so fortunate to be able to do it by working with the wonderful actor Tamara Meneghini. This play has gone through a number of iterations before we felt it was ready for the Fringe. We are so excited and so grateful to all that Penelope Cole has done to make this happen.
I am so proud to be able to use some of Elizabeth’s own words to introduce both Elizabeth the queen and Elizabeth the woman to audiences today. This is a memory play, with Elizabeth at the end of her life looking back on both her trials and her triumphs. She established a religious settlement. Under Elizabeth, England defeated the Spanish Armada. She had a close relationship with Robert Dudley but told him there would be one mistress and no master.
One of the most important and difficult relationships in Elizabeth’s life was with Mary Stuart (Mary Queen of Scots). The queens never actually met. They were cousins, rivals. The play explores how they regarded each other when each was queen of her own country as Elizabeth reads her letters to Mary and Mary’s to her. Elizabeth tells the audience how she felt when Mary fled Scotland after her forced abdication and then while in England, conspires to have Elizabeth assassinated. Agreeing to Mary’s execution was one of the hardest choices Elizabeth ever made, but in the end, she felt it was Mary’s life or hers.
Here's what she says:
With plot after plot against me, Parliament kept insisting that Mary must lose her head. Yet I refused, despite her plots. She was my cousin and an anointed queen. Many of the leaders of my kingdom signed a Bond of Association putting Mary’s supporters on notice that were I killed, they would kill Mary. Yet even with that Mary would not stop becoming involved in conspiracies to have me assassinated, make her queen, and bring back Catholicism and burn those who refused to accept her rule. It had to end.
Those who see this play may well find Elizabeth can change their lives as well.
