Princess Elizabeth’s A New Year’s Present
Painting by William Scots “The Young Elizabeth” c. 1546-47 (Royal Collection, London)
Twelve-year old Princess Elizabeth gave her stepmother an extraordinary new year’s present December 30, 1545. It was a small book covered in blue silk that she embroidered with two red and silver initials: HR (Henry Rex) and KP (Katherine Parr). The book was a long letter she wrote in French to Katherine along with her own translation of the first chapter of John Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion. This was the first translation of the 1541 French edition of the Institutes, and only one of two translations of any of Calvin’s writings known in England before the end of the reign of King Henry VIII in 1547.
Young Elizabeth’s three tutors were humanist evangelicals, so it was no accident that her studies included the new religion that was gaining popularity in England’s educated class. But translating the Swiss reformer into English as a gift for her queen mother in the last years of King Henry’s life was daring and tricky. She wanted to show her love and appreciation to Katherine who had supported her and who was also devoted to evangelical (Protestant) Christianity, without raising the ire of her Catholic and religiously unpredictable father. Walking this delicate road, Elizabeth didn’t mention Calvin or the title of his work anywhere in her letter or in the translation, describing him only as “my author,” and near the end of her letter of dedication she described the translation as “a little book whose thesis or subject, Saint Paul said, surpasses the capacity of every creature.” Clearly this gift was more than a classroom assignment; it shows Elizabeth’s incredible intellect and her sympathetic leanings towards Protestantism.
In an essay on Elizabeth’s gift, Brenda Hosington comments:
“Elizabeth’s dedication functions in a similar way to other early modern dedicatory epistles, whose major purpose was to elicit patronage, preferment or protection. Hers, of course, is not intended to solicit monetary or professional support or advancement, although protection might well have been part of her agenda. Rather, she is hoping that her translation will secure her relationship with Katherine and her father, while at the same time enhancing her reputation as a learned and serious-thinking young woman.”
Calvin’s commitment to the biblical doctrine of predestination and election are near the surface of all his writings, including this first chapter of the Institutes, but Elizabeth wisely downplays in the dedication navigating between wanting to please both her stepmother and father. This is the balancing act that she maintained through her life, even as Queen of England and Ireland.
Commenting on Elizabeth’s religion as queen and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Diarmaid MacCulloch said
“Sometimes she has been seen as a Henrician Catholic, pushed into a more Protestant settlement by those around her. This is a clear mistake. Elizabeth was an evangelical, but of a distinctive and (in the conditions of the late 1550s) an extremely old-fashion variety. She disliked the marriage of clergy and enjoyed more ceremonial and decoration in worship than her half-brother would have considered tolerable. If we want to place her beliefs, we should do so not at the court of Edward, but at the court of Henry VIII and Catherine Parr in the mid-1540s. This was the era when Elizabeth had first been given a role of dignity, when she became one of the elite of children who enjoyed an exceptional rich and privileged education. ”