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Elizabeth considered herself above all a ruler, secondly a woman. Her people were her children, and perhaps for this she was the most beloved person in England. Reigning by a personality that cared about her people and returned their devotion, able to exhaust herself completely in the service of her country because she had no husband, children, or personal life that could not be put aside easily to deal with matters of policy and state, she was easily the most popular monarch of her day. She remained in control of her country and admitted no foreign influence at the head, the mistake that destroyed her sister’s first flush of popularity.

She never tired of declaring that she found no pleasure of princely power but only in the sacrificial service of her people, in which she "wasted away like ‘a tape of true virgin wax,… that I might give light and comfort to those that live under me.’"

At the end of her life, she told Parliament:

Reactions to Elizabeth

That popularity was her most potent weapon and explains why Elizabeth got away with a political career built on indecision at best and deceit and trickery at worst (which she only turned on her opponents).

"She is much attached to the people, and is confident that they are all on her side, which is indeed true," wrote De Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, to Philip. Even her enemies, Philip among them, respected and feared her.

John Knox, caught in his own trap when Elizabeth took offense at his tract, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Woman (aimed not at Elizabeth but at her Scottish cousin), made the enormous concession of admitting that she was an exception to the principle of female unfitness: "a miraculous exception, placed on her throne by God Himself, to serve His own unsearchable ends."

Pope Sixtus V declared, "If she were not a heretic, she would be worth a whole world."

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