Elizabeth I
From Philosopedia
Elizabeth I (Queen) (7 September 1533 - 24 March 1603)
Joseph McCabe wrote that although many think it a paradox or a strain of evidence to claim monarchs of Christian lands as freethinkers, he feels the Queen of England from 1558 to 1603 was a freethinker, as was Caroline and a number of others:
“She studied seriously in youth,” he wrote of Queen Elizabeth I, “but she had to make her way cautiously in ‘an age that was so brave and beautiful and blackguardly’ (as Lynd calls it) because the rival Christians were religious cut-throats. She was, moreover, vigorous and masculine to a degree of coarseness. I am convinced that she belonged to what is now called ‘the Third Sex.’”
John Richard Green in his standard Short History of the English People (Ch. viii, 83), says that “no (other) woman who ever lived was so totally destitute of the sentiment of religion.” Professor A. F. Pollard says in his authoritative Political History of England (VI, p. 180) that “it can hardly be doubted that she was skeptical or indifferent.”
“She was a humane ruler,” concludes McCabe, “until Catholic plots forced her to change her policy.” But, he adds, “Her persecution of Catholics was not religious in motive. She held to a policy of toleration until the Catholics began to plot against her. The suggestion of some that her ‘virginity’ implies religious belief is frivolous and is excluded by the boisterous vulgarity of her character. An application to her case of our modern knowledge of the glands might solve that problem.”
Elizabeth is one of many people who were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church.
