I Know I Have The Body

Queen Elizabeth I delivered this speech to her troops assembled at Tilbury in Essex on August 9, 1588, as England prepared to repel the expected Spanish invasion. The Spanish Armada had in fact already been scattered in the Battle of Gravelines eleven days earlier, though Elizabeth's forces did not yet know the invasion threat had passed. The speech is recorded in the early 17th-century letter of Dr. Leonel Sharp, who was present at Tilbury; its authenticity is accepted by most historians, though no contemporary verbatim transcript survives. The line's rhetorical power lies in Elizabeth's explicit acknowledgment of her female body alongside her claim to royal authority — a strategic inversion that transformed what might have been a weakness into a demonstration of personal courage.