War & Peace Quote by Elizabeth I

Spoken like a ruler who knows that wars are rarely “caused” and almost always “sold.” Elizabeth I’s line turns the usual moral accounting upside down: instead of treating war as an unavoidable instrument of state, she frames it as a crime with identifiable culprits - “authors and instigators” who profit from bloodshed while monarchs shoulder the ruin. The phrasing is prosecutorial. War isn’t fate; it’s authored. And if it’s authored, it can be punished.

The intent is both ethical and tactical. Elizabeth rebrands the warmonger as a domestic threat, “sworn enemies” not of some foreign crown but of the state itself. That’s a brilliant bit of political jiu-jitsu: the people most eager for war often claim to be patriots, draped in loyalty. She strips them of that costume and recasts them as saboteurs. It’s also a warning to courtiers and advisors in a court culture where access to the sovereign could mean steering policy toward private grudges, religious vendettas, or lucrative campaigns.

Context matters: Elizabeth governed a Protestant realm ringed by Catholic rivals, with constant pressure to plunge into continental conflicts - Spain, France, the Netherlands, Ireland. Her reign depended on calibrating aggression and restraint, using naval raids, proxies, and delay as tools of survival. The subtext is self-defense dressed as principle: if war is contagious, the first quarantine is political. Kill the instigators, and you don’t just save lives; you protect the crown from being maneuvered into someone else’s agenda.