ELIZABETH'S MEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 733, 31 July 1953, Page 20

ELIZABETH'S MEN

"THE men and women of the Eliza-. bethan age are very directly related to us. We are still influenced by their successes and their failures. Across 400 years we can still read the words they wrote and spoke and follow their meaning without effort. In spite of all the changes which have followed ‘them, they gave England the shape and won for her the position which affect our living and our fhinkine today." George Naylor gives this as one reason for discussing the men of the reign of Elizabeth I in the first of a series of talks entitled Elizabeth’s Men, written for Coronation year, which will start from 3YC at 8.0 p.m. this Friday (July 31). Mr. Naylor concerns himself with six of the men who helped, to build up the power of Queen Elizabeth — a churchman, a sailor, a merchant, a courtier and two statesmen, Explaining his choice, he.says that each of the men is interesting in himself, and they are all

representatives of particular types-of elements which were necessary to the building of Elizabethan power. When we talk about the power of any English ruler, says Mr. Naylor, it’s easy to forget that it. was always a derived power, drawn from different sources. When it has been greatest and. most ‘secure it has always been widely based. "Queen Elizabeth was a despotic ruler as far as the constitution went; but.she was a despot without an army, and ultimately all her power drew from the will, or at least from the consent, of the mass of the English people." What do we think of first when the Elizabethan age is mentioned? Raleigh and his cloak, Drake and his game of bowls? "If serious study takes some of the gilt off the gingerbread (says Mr. Naylor), a surprising amount still remains." It was a spacious and adventurous time for all its difficulties and grimness. Sketching in the backgtound to (continued on next, page)

(continued from previous page) the age, he speaks particularly of a man whose name does not appear in his list of six. As important as any statesman or admiral, of ancient lineage, he is His Worship or His Honour the Justice of the Peace, without whom the machinery of the state would have broken down. But. don’t confuse him with the modern J.P. or S.M.-"we will place him best if we remember that at one time he was called ‘The Keeper of the King’s Peace.’ "’ And who are Mr. Naylor’s six? The first is Archbishop Parker, who carried as heavy a load as Elizabeth placed on the shoulders of any man. Second comes Sir John Hawkins, in whvse tradition the Royal Navy has always had its real core of strength. In third place comes -Mr. Secretary Walsingham. whose character and achievements are still in dispute over 360 years after his death. The fourth is Thomas Gresham, the financier, without whom, it has been said, all the great men Elizabeth called about her might have legisiated and adventured and fought and died in vain. Fifth is Sir Philip Sidney whom Spenser called the "president of noblesse and of chivalry," and sixth is Lofd Burghley, ranked by one historian as one of the three greatest statesmen in modern history-and by another a mere politician and not RY of the name statesman at all.

, « O you, too, think of something rather high-flown and academic and unpractical when you hear the name Unesco? Have you tried to find out, without prejudice, just what Unesco is doing in the way of a practical, down-to-earth job? Do you’ know _ that Unesco’s total budget of roughly two and a half million pounds means. two-

pence a year-a whole twopence-to the individual Englishman? More than half the people of the world don’t have enough food to maintain health, and three-quarters of the , people of the world are illiterate. One of the big practical jobs Unesco is doing to help these people to help themselves is in the field of "fundamental education." tJ

What does that mean in practical terms? Some time ago Leonard Cottrell visited Mexico to find out. He looked in at the Unesco Centre at Patzcuaro — the first international centre in the world for training teachers in the technique of funelamental education; but he also spent a good deal of time with those who are at work among the people, helping to show them how in one way or another they can reduce pove

erty, hunger and_sickeness. Experiment in Mexico, the dramatised feature which Mr. Cottrell wrote as a result of- his visit, is to be heard in two parts from NZBS stations, starting from 2YC at 7.30: p.m. on Saturday, August 8. It will start from stations in the other three main centres during August and Sep tember.