“Be that as it may, she died a Queen who had lived for long, both gloriously and happily in this world. With her dies the family of Tudor, originally of Welsh extraction. As to her personal appearance, she leaves the fame of past though never quite lost beauty. As to her mental qualities, they quote ever so many instances of prudence, not emanating from the Council, but in many important cases the result of her sole deliberation. She possessed nine languages so thoroughly that each appeared to be her native tongue; five of these were the languages of peoples governed by her, English, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish, for that part of her possessions where they are still savage, and Irish. All of them are so different, that it is impossible for those who speak the one to understand any of the others. Besides this, she spoke perfectly Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian extremely well. The Kingdom is naturally strong in the tides which wash its shores, and vary as much as six and more fathoms of water. For defence of the Kingdom the Queen leaves behind her thirty-eight ships between great and small. One of these she kept as a trophy on shore; it was the ship in which Drake made his circumnavigation of the globe. Only fifteen of these thirty-eight are fitted out, just now, with munitions of war. There are munitions sufficient in store to arm upwards of two hundred ships. And she can raise forty thousand men, besides the sixty thousand already entered on the parish registers for the protection of the shore; add to these ships the Scottish fleet, whatever size it may be, and one may almost say that the new King can make a bridge of ships across the sea. The Queen leaves a quantity of jewels, both belonging to the Crown and her own private property, but not more than half a million in money.”
Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli, Venetian Secretary in England, to the Doge and Senate, paying tribute to Elizabeth I.
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2087
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