The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

5.23 Queen Elizabeth I 1533-1603
I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God
that I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat, I were
able to live in any place in Christome.
Speech to Members of Parliament, 5 November 1566, in J. E. Neale ‘Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1559-
1581’ (1953) pt. 3, ch. 1
As for me, I see no such great cause why I should either be fond to live or fear to die. I have
had good experience of this world, and I know what it is to be a subject and what to be a
sovereign. Good neighbours I have had, and I have met with bad: and in trust I have found
treason.
Speech to Parliament, 1586, in William Camden ‘Annales rerum anglicanum’ (1615) bk. 3
I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a
king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of
Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
Speech to the troops at Tilbury on the approach of the Armada, 1588, in Lord Somers ‘A Third Collection of
Scarce and Valuable Tracts’ (1751) p. 196
Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned
with your loves.
The Golden Speech, 1601, in ‘The Journals of All the Parliaments During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth’...
Collected by Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1682) p. 659
Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and
all the rest were little ones.
Describing the tactics of the Commission of Sales, in their dealings with her, in Francis Bacon ‘Apophthegms
New and Old’ (1625) no. 54
Good-morning, gentlemen both.
To a delegation of eighteen tailors, in F. Chamberlin ‘The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth’ (1923) p. 28. ‘Concise
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs’ ‘Nine tailors make a man’ under nine
I will make you shorter by the head.
To the leaders of her Council, who were opposing her course towards Mary Queen of Scots, in F. Chamberlin
‘The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth’ (1923) p. 224
’Twas God the word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it;
And what the word did make it;
That I believe, and take it.
Answer on being asked her opinion of Christ’s presence in the Sacrament, in S. Clarke ‘The Marrow of
Ecclesiastical History’ (1675) pt. 2, bk. 1 ‘The Life of Queen Elizabeth’ p. 94
If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.
Lines after Sir Walter Ralegh, written on a window-pane: Thomas Fuller ‘Worthies of England’ vol. 1, p. 419.
Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man! thy father, if he had
been alive, durst not have used that word.
To Robert Cecil, on his advising her she must go to bed, in J. R. Green ‘A Short History of the English