Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

Before the speech the Armada had been driven from the Strait of Dover in the Battle of Gravelines eleven days earlier, and had by then rounded Scotland on its way home, but troops were still held at ready in case the Spanish army of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, might yet attempt to invade from Dunkirk; two days later they were discharged.

(pp.372-374)[2][1] A late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century copy of this speech (with minor variants to the published version) exists in the Harleian Collection of the British Library.

We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.

In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.The speech's veracity was accepted by the historian J. E. Neale in an article, 'The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth': "I see no serious reason for rejecting the speech.

[4] The speech has been accepted as genuine by the historians Mandell Creighton,[5] Garrett Mattingly,[6] Patrick Collinson ("...there is no reason to doubt its authenticity"),[7] Wallace T. MacCaffrey,[8] Lady Anne Somerset,[9] Antonia Fraser,[10] Alison Weir,[11] Christopher Haigh,[12] Simon Schama,[13] David Starkey[14] and Robert Hutchinson.

As quoted in J. E. Neale's Elizabeth, her demeanour was "full of princely resolution and more than feminine courage" and that "she passed like some Amazonian empress through all her army".

Another figure that Elizabeth represented during this speech was Britomart, originally a Greek nymph and more recently the allegorical heroine in Edmund Spenser's epic The Faerie Queene.

However, as Garrett Mattingly put it: …an objective observer would have seen no more than a battered, rather scraggy spinster in her middle fifties perched on a fat white horse, her teeth black, her red wig slightly askew, dangling a toy sword and wearing an absurd little piece of parade armor like something out of a theatrical property box.After she had made her rounds through the troops, Elizabeth delivered her speech to them.

In the past, Elizabeth had defied gender expectations by refusing to marry or produce heirs, instead opting to rule alone, with God and England as her soul mates.

At the same time that she claims the power, she acknowledges her physical weakness and condescends to the level of soldiers and subjects to whom she lovingly refers in the speech.

)In Elizabetha Triumphans, published in 1588, James Aske provides a version of the speech, reworked in verse: Their loyal hearts to us their lawful Queen.

And though of love their duties crave no less Yet say to them that we in like regard And estimate of this their dearest zeal (In time of need shall ever call them forth To dare in field their fierce and cruel foes) Will be ourself their noted General Ne dear at all to us shall be our life, Ne palaces or Castles huge of stone Shall hold as then our presence from their view: But in the midst and very heart of them Bellona-like we mean as them to march; On common lot of gain or loss to both They well shall see we recke shall then betide.

[26] The ballad, written by Thomas Deloney, one of the most popular poets of the day, corresponds fairly closely to John Aske's description of the events in Elizabetha Triumphans.