The ‘holy days’ of Queen Elizabeth I

Abstract

The annual celebrations of the accession day and birthday of Queen Elizabeth I are a familiar subject in studies of her reign, yet their beginnings, status and purpose have remained uncertain. By examining revisions of the calendar of the Church of England published in the Book of Common Prayer from early in the reign, this article establishes the dates of the first recognition of these public anniversaries. It questions the weight that has been attached to the evidence for these occasions provided in churchwardens’ accounts, and challenges the conventional interpretations that accession day began and spread as wholly spontaneous, local and popular festivities, and expressed a straightforward patriotic ‘cult’ of the queen. While agreeing that they were not holidays, and explaining that they were not strictly ‘holy days’, it is argued that the two anniversaries began as and continued to be religious occasions, and are best understood in terms of the religious politics of the Elizabethan state. As other scholars have shown by careful exegesis of sermons addressed to the queen, ‘godly’ clergy persistently urged her to undertake further protestant reformation and firmer anti-catholic measures. With the anniversaries and in the forms of prayer for accession day, archbishops and bishops provided opportunities and texts both to sustain loyalty to the actual queen and to stimulate hopes of a queen who would more completely fulfil their understanding of her providential role.