Response to Ambassador of Poland

Queen Elizabeth I
Response to Ambassador

In the above piece, Elizabeth reveals how thorough was her humanistic education, here is another example (intro by Maria Perry)

The Court was at Greenwich when an ambassador from the kingdom of Poland arrived. He was the son of the Duke of Finland, who had wooed Elizabeth almost forty years earlier as the proxy of Erik of Sweden. Robert Cecil, now firmly established in the Secretary's post which Elizabeth had granted him while Essex was at Cadiz, wrote to the earl aboard ship, describing the ambassador as 'a gentleman of excellent fashion, wit, discourse, language and person'. Elizabeth was struck by his appearance and evident intelligence. She decided to receive him publicly in the Presence Chamber. He wore a long robe of black velvet covered with jewels, and came to kiss Elizabeth's hand as she stood under her canopy of estate. Then he backed away to begin his speech. As the Latin phrases resounded through the Presence Chamber, astonishment covered the faces of the assembled courtiers. The quarrel between the Queen of England and the King of Spain was affecting the King of Poland's merchants, disrupting his trade routes and violating the law of nature and of nations. Elizabeth had been expecting a complimentary address. She paused for a few seconds then, turning on the young man, she began her reply in flawless extempore Latin:

O quam decepta fui [rasped the indignant voice] expectavi legationem mihi vero querelam adduxisti. How I have been deceived! I was expecting a diplomatic mission, but you have brought me a quarrel! By virtue of your testimonials I have received you as an ambassador, but I have found you instead a challenger. Never in my life have I heard such audacity. I marvel, indeed I marvel at so great and such unprecedented impertinence in public. Nor can I believe that had your King been here he would have spoken in such words. But if he had, indeed, happened, which I can scarcely credit, to entrust some such matter to your hands, even though the King is young and a King not by birth but by election--and newly elected at that--he would show himself as having a very imperfect understanding of the manner in which such matters are handled between Princes, a manner observed towards us by his betters and which he will perhaps observe in future. As for yourself, you give me the impression of having studied many books, but not yet of having graduated to the books of Princes, rather remaining ignorant of the dealings between Kings. As to the law of nature and of nations of which you make so much mention, know that the law of nature and of nations is thus: when war is declared between Kings, either may cut the other's lines of supply, no matter where they run from and neither may they make it a precondition of their losses that these be made good. This, I say, is the law of nature and of nations. And as for your alliance with the House of Austria by which you set so much store, let it not escape your memory that there was one of that house, who attempted to wrest the kingdom of Poland from your King. For the other matters which are too numerous to be dealt with here and now, you shall wait until you hear what is considered by certain of my counsellors appointed to consider them. Meanwhile farewell and hold your Peace.

'It was one of the best answers in extempore Latin that ever I heard,' wrote Cecil to the absent Essex. Tradition has it that Elizabeth, conscious of her success, turned her back on the unfortunate young diplomat, remarking loudly to her courtiers, 'My lords, I have been forced this day to scour up my rusty old Latin.'