Who Wrote Elizabeth I's Most Scathing Letters?

Historians have traditionally attributed emotional expressions in Queen Elizabeth I's letters to the monarch herself, but new research reveals that her secretaries, particularly Francis Walsingham and Francis Mylles, carefully crafted these emotional passages as collaborative contributions. Through analysis of over 500 of Elizabeth's surviving letters—most written by scribes rather than the queen herself—scholars discovered that secretaries strategically constructed emotional language to serve diplomatic purposes, contrary to assumptions that personal feelings were purely the queen's own voice. This finding challenges the conventional focus on identifying Elizabeth's individual "voice" and demonstrates that her most scathing correspondence was often a deliberate product of collaboration between the monarch and her secretariat.