Speech to the troops at Tilbury

During late 1500s and early 1600 century, the reformation of Catholic churches was starting in different countries. In the speech to the troops in Tulibury, the Queen Elizabeth I tries to persuade the citizens to place their trust in her. There is lots of evidence supporting this idea. First, the different literary devices and usage of strong words supports this idea. Second, the organization of the speech also communicates the importance of trust on her from civilians.

First, the word choices that Queen Elizabeth the First had made clearly identifies that the speech was written to persuade people to believe her. Some of these literary devices include repetition. The writer of the speech uses the word “foul” or “scorn” (10, Elizabeth) to communicate that other countries who believe the old Catholic church are fools, therefore, England should not continue to be Catholic. Moreover, she uses the phrase “careful of our safety” (1) so she would not offend the citizens who are members of Catholic church. She also uses the phrase “chiefest strength and safeguard” (4) to infer her belief of God. The words such as “valour” (18) and “enemies” (19) are words that appear to show the people the need to be brave when they are in front of enemies and motivate them to fight back. The enemies in this case refers to religion, thus, the speaker uses personification to demonstrate her faith in her religion. In addition, she uses the word God several times to show her strong faith, and to persuade the civilians to believe the same religion as her. The parallelism was used in the speech to help the speaker to convey the message in a conscious manner. The specific example of parallelism is the phrase “I myself will be” which helps the readers to understand what the Queen will do in the situation of reformation. Hence, the word choices that Elizabeth made in this speech was to make the listeners understand her opinion on reformation and religion.

On top of that, the order of the speech supports the understanding of her position about religion. This is because the speech in the beginning states the problem, then continues with the weaknesses of the opposing side, and concludes with a positive message. In the beginning, the speech is about stating the unhealthy faith of citizens; however, she does not use offensive words so the civilians would not feel insulted. Furthermore, in the middle section of the speech, the Queen mentions her weakness as a woman to humble herself and to lift the public up. This helps the listeners think that the speaker does not want to change the religion because she is better than everyone else but because it is for the greater good. In addition, she mentions her wish so the crowds could follow her religion. Consequently, it is unambiguous that the Queen Elizabeth I tried to convince the citizens to be part of her religion.

In a nutshell, the speaker, the Queen Elizabeth I attempts to persuade the civilians to become normal Christians and not Catholic Christians. The rationale behind this thought is clearly shown throughout the whole speech and the organization of it. Therefore, the speech shows that the religious instability of the time period.

CITATION

“Queen Elizabeth I: Speech to the Troops at Tilbury.” Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature, www.luminarium.org/renlit/tilbury.htm.