CHARACTER MEANS ALL THE WORDS PEOPLE RESPECT: Queen Elizabeth I models a sense of calm. Elizabeth’s reign is evaluated in Beesly’s final chapter. He marvels at the fact that Elizabeth expertly governed a country for forty-four years—a country faced with unprecedented challenges (Beesly 239). The logic and simplicity of Beesly’s evaluation is not lost; he writes that Elizabeth managed her country’s challenges with unquestionable success. Elizabeth’s complex rule is explained in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. The editors write, “Elizabeth I was a figure who both exemplified conventional notions of gender and stood as the great exception” (XLIX). In part, one reads, Elizabeth’s success as a ruler is her uniqueness; she stands out “as an icon of female virtues” while also serving as a model of being “sure-handed in exercising power” (I). Gilbert and Gubar, 2007, appreciate Elizabet the writer. They explain, “Her translations, speeches, and poems illustrate her political genius and her rhetorical ingenuity” (65). Significantly, in the authors’ views, Elizabeth’s skills as a writer are not to be seen as a luxury, but a necessity; they were needed skills to help Elizabeth manage “opposition to her rule” (Gilbert and Gubar 65). Poplawski acknowledges the challenges Elizabeth faced, noting that she “accepted the crown of an exhausted and weakened nation” (120). Her challenges are also ones of gender; Poplawski explains how Elizabeth governed “in a world deeply unsympathetic to female rule of any kind” (120). Such observations make Elizabeth’s legacy that much more impressive. Damrosch and Dettmar argue that Elizabeth’s legacy as an English ruler is matched by another British monarch (1073). Accomplishments cited include economic stability, navy prowess, unprecedented scientific discovery, and artistic revelation (Damrosch and Dettmar 1073). A testament from Shakespeare supports the argument that is made; quotes in Damrosch and Dettmar is the line, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety” (1073). Greenblatt, 2012, describes Elizabeth as highly educated, detailing her “training in classical and modern languages, history, rhetoric, theology, and moral philosophy” (749). One finds in Elizabeth a prepared ruler when she “came to the throne” at twenty-five (Greenblatt 741). In Greenblatt, historians find more acknowledgement of the remarkable achievement of Elizabeth’s reign, given the reluctance of many to support a female ruler (750).