SAT写作经典例子之伊丽莎白一世_SAT写作

SAT写作经典例子之伊丽莎白一世

　　Internal Decline

　　The latter years of Elizabeth also saw tensions emerge in domestic politics. The long-term dominance of the house of Cecil, perpetuated after Burghleys death by his son, Sir Robert Cecil, was strongly contested by others, like the Earl of Essex, who sought the Queens patronage. The Parliament of 1601 saw Elizabeth involved in a considerable fight over the granting of monopolies. Elizabeth was able to head off the conflict by promising that she herself would institute reforms. Her famous Golden Speech delivered to this, her last Parliament, indicated that even in old age she had the power to win her people to her side: Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves.... It is my desire to live nor reign no longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had, nor shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.

　　The words concealed the reality of the end of Elizabeths reign. It is apparent, in retrospect, that severe tensions existed. The finances of the Crown, exhausted by war since the 1580s, were in sorry condition; the economic plight of the country was not much better. The Parliament was already sensing its power to contest issues with the monarchy, though they now held back, perhaps out of respect for their elderly queen. Religious tensions were hidden rather than removed. For all the greatness of her reign, the reign that witnessed the naval feats of Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins and the literary accomplishments of Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe, it was a shaky inheritance that Elizabeth would pass on to her successor, the son of her rival claimant, Mary, Queen of Scots. On March 24, 1603, the Queen died; as one contemporary noted, she departed this life, mildly like a lamb, easily like a ripe apple from the tree.