Extra: Letters on the Death of Elizabeth I

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• 00:16

  This is an extra mini episode of medieval Death trip for September 14, 2022.

• 00:32

  So on September 8, a few days ago, as I record this, Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of 96, and now we are seeing the stages in the funeral process proceed alongside the coronation of the new king.

• 00:46

  This is a significant event in british regal history that I felt this show should acknowledge in some way, but I wasn't sure what kind of content would be appropriate for the occasion and for all the different emotions out there.

• 01:01

  So what I've selected is an account of the death of Queen Elizabeth I, which I hope offers us a little historical perspective on a royal death that's interesting without being too morbid or grotesque.

• 01:14

  It is a fairly naturalistic portrait of a 69 year old woman passing away rather quietly, of natural causes, exacerbated perhaps by depression, but otherwise not particularly unusual or dramatic, especially for the time period.

• 01:30

  The unusual thing here is just the elevated political status of the person going through this death experience.

• 01:38

  But I hope this little story might offer something to reflect on as we consider the death of Elizabeth II an event both unexpectedly suddenly, but also not really surprising in the larger scheme of things.

• 01:52

  Our source is an 18th century book with the wonderfully verbose 18th century title Memoirs of the reign of Queen Elizabeth from the year 1581 till her death, in which the secret intrigues of her court and the conduct of her favorite Robert, Earl of Essex, both at home and abroad, are particularly illustrated from the original papers of Anthony Bacon, esquire, and other manuscripts.

• 02:15

  Never before published period this two volume tome was written by Thomas Burch and published in 1754.

• 02:24

  Burch seems to have been an interesting character, someone who was respected and praised for his intellect by contemporaries like Samuel Johnson, but whose wittiness apparently didn't carry over into his writing style.

• 02:37

  As also remarked on by his contemporaries, he was a member of the royal society and keeper of the books at the British Museum.

• 02:45

  Also, according to Wikipedia, in a statement lacking citation, he was an avid fisherman who disguised himself as a tree with his arms made to look like branches in order to avoid spooking the fish.

• 02:59

  I have one other little light introductory digression before we get to the more somber material.

• 03:04

  As I read Birch's text, which is based heavily on letters to King Henry IV of France from the french ambassador at Elizabeth's court, were going to see an issue with the dates in the text, which reflects what for Birch was a recent change in the British Empire.

• 03:21

  The calendar New style Act 1750 introduced two major changes to how the british empire marked dates.

• 03:30

  First, it dropped the julian calendar and adopted the gregorian calendar.

• 03:35

  The julian calendar, instituted by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, had a simple leap year rule that just added a leap year every fourth year.

• 03:45

  But thats actually a bit too frequently to be adding in an extra day.

• 03:49

  And the julian year began to run ahead of the solar year.

• 03:53

  Thats why the gregorian calendar, proposed in 1582 by Pope Gregory VIII, changed the leap day calculation to skip leap years divisible by 100, unless theyre also divisible by 400.

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