Elizabethan England - Elizabeth I and Image

How did Elizabeth I use her image? Why was her image so important to her? And what messages do her portraits convey?

This lesson looks in detail to why image was so important to Elizabeth I, and teaches students to decode the symbolism of her most famous portraits.

• The lesson starts with students considering the images of the royal family today. What messages can we get from pictures? Why are images still important to people in power?
• Elizabeth and her image - why pictures were important in the sixteenth century. The slide also includes a hyperlink to a National Portrait Gallery video that discusses the access people had to images, and the role Elizabeth played in creating an official state image.
• Think Like A Courtier! A guide to unpicking symbolism, using a portrait of Elizabeth as a teenager
• Group work with portraits. Using four portraits of Elizabeth and cards with key symbolism explained, students are to try and match up the symbol with the meaning. Challenge: can students work out what the message of the entire portrait might be?
• Class feedback on the images, discussing when they were produced.
• What does Elizabeth’s reliance on symbolism suggest about her power? The lesson ends with a class discussion on the role of propaganda - does it suggest weakness, or is it a source of strength?

This lesson was designed for the OCR B Elizabethan England module ‘Elizabeth and Government’ but would work as a lesson to develop source skills, or as an exploration of Elizabethan power for other exam boards.