I am Elizabeth
Elizabeth - a Prisoner
Poem and Prayers during my Imprisonments
From the Tower and from Woodstock Palace, 1554-5
O Fortune, thy wresting, wavering state
Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit,
Whose witness this present prison late
Could bear, where once was joy flown quite.
Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed
From lands where innocents were enclosed,
And caused the guiltless to be reserved,
And freed those that death had well deserved.
But all herein can be naught wrought,
So God grant to my foes as they have thought.
Finis. Elisabetha a prisoner, 1555
Much suspected by me, but nothing proved can be.
Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit,
Whose witness this present prison late
Could bear, where once was joy flown quite.
Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed
From lands where innocents were enclosed,
And caused the guiltless to be reserved,
And freed those that death had well deserved.
But all herein can be naught wrought,
So God grant to my foes as they have thought.
Finis. Elisabetha a prisoner, 1555
Much suspected by me, but nothing proved can be.
© 2011 Karen S. Palmer
Template design by Andreas Viklund
Template design by Andreas Viklund
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Woodstock Palace
about 8 miles from Oxford
about 8 miles from Oxford
Written on a window frame at Woodstock
The Christian prayers of our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth, which her grace made in the time of her trouble, and imprisonment in the Tower ...
Help me now, O God, for I have none other friends but Thee alone. And suffer me not (I beseech Thee) to build my foundation upon the sands, but upon the rock, whereby all blasts of blustering weather may have no power against me, amen.
Another prayer made by her majesty, when she was in great fear and doubt of death by murder:
Grant, O God, that the wicked may have no power to hurt or betray me, neither suffer any such treason and wickedness to proceed against me. For Thou, O God, canst mollify all such tyannous hearts and disappoint all such cruel purposes. And I beseech Thee to hear me, Thy creature, which am Thy servant and at Thy commandment, trusting by Thy grace ever so to remain, amen.
Help me now, O God, for I have none other friends but Thee alone. And suffer me not (I beseech Thee) to build my foundation upon the sands, but upon the rock, whereby all blasts of blustering weather may have no power against me, amen.
Another prayer made by her majesty, when she was in great fear and doubt of death by murder:
Grant, O God, that the wicked may have no power to hurt or betray me, neither suffer any such treason and wickedness to proceed against me. For Thou, O God, canst mollify all such tyannous hearts and disappoint all such cruel purposes. And I beseech Thee to hear me, Thy creature, which am Thy servant and at Thy commandment, trusting by Thy grace ever so to remain, amen.
Prayers written at the Tower of London
Map of the Tower of London
from 1597
from 1597
Poem and Prayers from Marcus, pp 45-6, p 48
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