Speech To The Troops At Tillbury Analysis

There were many changes occurring during the Renaissance in England, but one the most important shift was the hierarchy within the society and the way people perceived god. When we look closely at the reign of Queen Elisabeth and her way to express herself to her citizens and using god to convince her population that by joining her they will take the right course of action, the monarch breaks away from the beliefs held during the middle ages. The middle ages had strong values for god and Hierarchy, they believed that god’s name should not be used in vain and those of royal blood and heavenly creatures are supposed to be superior to the common person in a way or another. Elisabeth, however, in her speech demonstrates to her nation that she considers
The queen addresses herself to her loyal subjects before entering the battle field in her famous speech “Speech to the Troops at Tillbury”. This sermon has to appeal to her warriors in order for them to give their full energy to defending the motherland. Elisabeth states: “My loving people, I have persuaded by some that are careful of my safety to take heed how I committed myself to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery. But I tell that I would not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.” In this passage Elisabeth tries to connect to her audience by praising them describing them as “my loving people” Elisabeth shows her gratitude towards her nation and creates a bridge between the middle class and the monarchy that brings them together and creates cohesion within the group. Unity is essential at this point for Elisabeth and she knows that if she does not keep her army joint, she might be assassinated as she mentions in her speech. Thus Elisabeth knew she had to move away from the way monarchy use to show their superiority over all others, because that might create further enemies or make her army go to war with an apathetic will and thus risk to lose her kingdom to the hands of the Spanish. But the way the royal decedents approach their nations is not the only change that can be observed in the Speech to the Troops at
When a person closely examines the tale Beowulf they can see that the character seems to be guided by god and does little allusion to the Holy Father when he tries to motivate his troops for the next battle they have to face, but in her speech Elisabeth does the complete opposite, she uses god to motivate them and prevent them from putting their involvement in this war into question. Elisabeth refers to god so forth: “…being resolved in the midst of heat of the battle to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom…” In this quote Elisabeth does not only say she is willing to sacrifice herself for her land, but most importantly for god himself. Knowing that religion played an important role during the renaissance, Elisabeth must have wanted to give to her nation a common identity in order to keep her troops united and most importantly not question her authority (Stephen J. Greenblatt). Thus by using God Elisabeth gives her nation a sense of nationalism by making them think that it is god himself who will guide them through this