The challenges posed by excommunication proved liberating, and she retained her popularity with her preferred constituency, the people. She conveyed the impression of evenhandedness, which only added to her stature. “I see and I say nothing” became her watchword. Later, she won admiration from a most unlikely source, Pope Sixtus V, who offered compliments tinged with regret: “She certainly is a great queen. Were she only a Catholic, she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs,” he exclaimed. “She is only a woman—only mistress of half an island—and yet she makes herself
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