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The Alchemy of Mythic Sovereignty in Elizabeth
- Kristina Dryža
- Jul 27
- 7 min read
There are films that depict history, and there are films that distill it into myth. Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth (1998) is one such mythic work, not because it meticulously tracks the political maneuvers of the Tudor court, but because it translates the life of Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) into a sacred rite of passage. The film therefore moves beyond biography and becomes the chronicle of a soul initiation.
At the story’s center is Cate Blanchett’s luminous embodiment of a woman who ceases to be mortal and evolves into something else entirely: a vessel, a vision, an archetype, a mythic sovereign. Here Elizabeth is not merely a political figure–her psyche undergoes a profound metamorphosis and her body is the alchemical crucible. In the film we observe her no longer belonging to herself during her reign, but belonging to history, and to the symbolism of iconography. Elizabeth develops into a representative interface between the divine feminine and the temporal world, the spirit and the sovereign state. And in Blanchett’s hands, we experience the queen as no mere ruler. Instead she transforms into a living mythos.
There is something so otherworldly about Blanchett’s performance. Director Kapur remembers, “The moment I saw her, I knew I had found my perfect Elizabeth.” Her performance exists in a liminal space outside of time because she doesn’t simply act as Elizabeth; she becomes a conduit for her spiritual majesty to be felt. Then, now, and for the future.
The maiden and the threshold
In the film’s opening sequences, Elizabeth Tudor is not yet the triumphant Virgin Queen that we recognize from the iconic Armada portrait commemorating the English victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588. However, we do get to view her as a vivacious, instinctual, tender, young woman of the court. She is the archetypal maiden: free-spirited, intuitive and impulsive, but until now, unformed as a sovereign being. She dances barefoot in the garden, kisses her lover in secret, and challenges her advisors with youthful defiance.
The film makes no attempt to rush Elizabeth’s coronation because political authority alone fails to define her form of queenship to the throne. Instead what unfolds is the slow shedding of the personal self through many years of hardships and challenges. These start with Elizabeth being only two years and eight months old when her mother, Anne Boleyn, is beheaded, and continue with her being announced illegitimate by her father, King Henry VIII. She is then held under house arrest, and further obstacles include: being imprisoned in the Tower of London, reconciling her gender and the jurisdiction of her rule, getting constantly attacked by religious factions, being excommunicated by Pope Pius V, constantly undermined and betrayed by courtly rivals, and manipulated and deceived by the man she loves.
The alchemy of the self
Blanchett’s Elizabeth is far more than a character growing in confidence; she is an expanding presence who is being forged in the fire of the tempestuous politics and courtly dramas of her time. She is the maiden crossing into her queenhood, Psyche navigating betrayal, Inanna descending into the underworld, and Artemis (equated with the Roman goddess Diana) severing ties to love in service of a greater destiny.
The betrayal by Lord Robert Dudley–the man she trusted, desired, and nearly married–is not just a personal heartbreak; it is the figurative death of any possibility for a private life. When she discovers his marriage, her maidenhood fractures, and in the ruins of that fracture, the latent, archetypal queen awakens.
Elizabeth isolates herself in her chambers with her ladies-in-waiting to craft her now immortalized image: the public persona of a chaste, unmarried, divinely appointed, Protestant monarch. Her declaration of the words “I have become a virgin” mark this climactic transfiguration not by chastity, but by consecration. This virginity is not of the body; it is of the soul, and of the spirit. While she is untouched by men, she is now untouchable by earthly life too. She has channeled the personal to be in service of the mythic.
Blanchett moves differently in these final scenes. As the Virgin Queen she no longer walks; she glides. Her voice lowers and drops into stillness. Her gaze steadies and no more flickers with doubt. Her body becomes a monument and a defiant emblem of sacrifice and virtue. She is not playing the queen. She is the queen, who now also looks like the Virgin Mary–an enlightened being–firm in her righteous place of purity and absolute power. This holy pattern descends, penetrates and inhabits her, and she crosses the threshold from flesh to symbol.
The sacred marriage
When Elizabeth emerges reborn as an icon of divinity, her stark face is covered in deadly makeup: Venetian ceruse (also known as ‘spirits of Saturn’)–a poisonous, white, lead-based makeup to present a mask of youth and to hide the scarring from smallpox–pupils dilated with belladonna eye drops to appear more attractive, and on her lips cinnabar-based vermilion–a toxic mineral containing mercury–believed to ward off evil spirits. Her jewel-encrusted, flame-red wig crowns her head like a halo. “Observe, Lord Burghley, I am married ... to England,” she proclaims. She has chosen the transcendent over the mortal, for the queen is not merely Elizabeth; she is now England itself. This was a brilliant political maneuver, but more than that, it was a sacrosanct vow. By renouncing personal marriage, she wed herself to her country and the symbolic role of the Queen of Heaven, who is full of grace and the mother of her people. And by appropriating Marian imagery and attributes in her portraits (iconoclasm forbade sacred images), Elizabeth superseded the Virgin Mary’s image with her own.
She has chosen the transcendent over the mortal, for the queen is not merely Elizabeth; she is now England itself.
The mythic sovereign
“I have rid England of her enemies,” Elizabeth whispers with quiet desolation. “What do I do now? Am I to be made of stone? Must I be touched by nothing?” This is the sacrifice of wearing the Crown, because the monarch does not merely rule, she must also contain–contain the tension of the many opposites within the collective psyche and all the associated chaos and turmoil–without herself ever coming undone. Hers is no longer a life lived for self-expression, but for the stewardship of both celestial and material realms.
Elizabeth becomes, quite literally, the body politic. Her body is not hers because it is the insignia of an incarnate ideal. In the ancient world, a sovereign ruler was not considered a mere administrator, but rather, the axis mundi: the living center of the state’s health, vitality, and divine favor. So Queen Elizabeth I is not simply a woman in power and a great patron of the arts (William Shakespeare’s most productive period coincided with the Elizabethan era); she is simultaneously an eternal representation of the sacred as England’s Grail-bearer, priestess and protector.
Beyond the mask
Joseph Campbell wrote that “to become–in Jung’s terms–individuated, to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one’s various life roles” (Myths to Live By, 67). As an ordinary woman, Elizabeth’s private emotions were suppressed. Her love, renounced. As monarch, her will sanctified. Yet as the carefully curated image in portraits, the cult of Gloriana–an immortal goddess sworn to protect a nation–she was exalted to a mythical status and the symbol of England’s cultural renaissance and Golden Age.
Elizabeth’s story, as rendered by Blanchett and Kapur, is not merely the depiction of a solitary, female ruler in a patriarchal world. It is a tale of the highest form of sovereignty: the long road from self-doubt to sacred stewardship to become a vessel for something larger than her everyday self. In this day and age where power is so often confused with domination and leadership styles with tragic, thespian performances, Elizabeth’s marriage to more elevated ideals calls us back to our souls. She is the fortitude after betrayal, the calm at the center of all that is temporal, and with a gaze that sees through the personality into its divine purpose. The life and reign of Queen Elizabeth I serves to remind us that the truest form of power is not in ruling others, but in securing authority over ourselves.
MythBlast authored by:
Kristina Dryža is an ex-futurist, author, TEDx speaker, archetypal consultant, one of the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s Editorial Advisory Group, and a steward for The Fifth Direction. Based between Australia and Lithuania, her work focuses less on the future and more on the unknown. Presence. Not prediction. What’s sacred? Not only what’s next. Kristina is passionate about helping people to perceive mythically and sense archetypally to better understand our shared humanity, yet honor the diverse ways we all live and make meaning. To learn more about Kristina, you can view her TEDx talk: Archetypes and Mythology. Why They Matter Even More So Today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o4PYNroZBY&t=525s
This MythBlast was inspired by The Hero With a Thousand Faces and the archetype of The Sovereign.
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"To become – in Jung’s terms – individuated, to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one’s various life roles."
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