May 12th, 1915.
Received by James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, Queen Elizabeth I of England.
I have been here several times but have never before been able to get the chance to write to you, and now that I have, do not disappoint me in my hope that you may help me.
Well, I was a very bad woman on earth as I now see the true relation of things and deeds and am suffering from the memory of those things.
I was looked upon as a creature of the divine favor and could, therefore, do no wrong, and that whatever I said or did must be obeyed and followed by my subjects, and others who lived within my dominions.
I lived a life that was not in accordance with the laws of morality or of God as they now appear to me; and when I tell you that, although I was a single woman yet had my lovers to gratify my passions and to please my caprices, you will understand that I was a wicked woman and that those are the things that now cause my sufferings and darkness.
I am not a spirit who thinks that because I was a ruler that therefore I could do no wrong. I knew at the time that many things I did were wrong and consequently my sufferings have become so much the greater. Many a poor soul has been sent to damnation by my commands, a damnation on earth as well as here. Even murder I was guilty of, although it may have had a legalized form, but it was murder nevertheless, and I am suffering the penalties. Why, some of my truest and best friends in moments of jealousy and envy I sent to the block, to afterwards bitterly regret my deed. Oh, I tell you that a queenly crown makes no difference in the penalty that must be paid for evil deeds. Many a humble subject of mine is now where I cannot go, and where they find happiness and love, as I am told.
I loved once truly and deeply, but I sacrificed the object of my love through pique, and what I wanted in my blind rage to have him do, and he would not, and how bitterly I regretted the deed and suffered even while on earth. Yet I was to all outward appearances callous and without feeling. But God knows how my heart bled, and how my very soul was wracked with remorse and torture. But I was a queen and had no right to have the feelings of a human being.
I loved and love had to be hid. He knew it and died in the knowledge that love wept while I killed him. Sometimes I hope that this love will meet again with the love of the victim, and be one throughout all eternity.
Well, I will not relate the vast number of evil deeds that I did, but only say that as my opportunity for committing evil without fear of punishment was great, so the number of my deeds was great.
But I have suffered in darkness and torment and love has been absent from me all these years of the travail of my soul. I have lived alone, as I saw no pleasures in what other spirits who lived near me were engaged in.
When I first entered the spirit world, I was still a queen as I believed and many of my subjects who had become spirits and knew me still believed I was their queen and worshipped me as such; but as time passed they saw that while on earth I may have been of divine creation, yet as a spirit I was without any evidence of divine right and no better than themselves, and they soon ceased to look upon me as superior to themselves and as is usual, as you on earth say, they went to the other extreme and treated me with neglect and even taunted me for having been on earth a fraud and deception. I soon hated them all, and so sought my consolation in silence and isolation.
What a mockery is nobility on earth and what a leveller is the spirit world! I many times have wished that they had let me remain the simple country girl and not made me the queen of a great nation. I can now see that if my life had been that of a subject living in God's pure and uncontaminated country air, I would now be a much happier spirit. But it is now too late. As I made my bed I must lie in it, and there is no remedy.
But yet when despair and darkness come to overwhelm us there yet seems some good Providence which gives us a little ray of hope and even though it comes to us as a glint of sunlight yet it comes, and we sometimes think that in the future, we know not when, there may be some relief for us. And so that glint of hope comes to me sometimes, and I feel that God has not forsaken me altogether.
I have seen spirits made happier by coming to you and so I came with just that little spark of hope telling me that you might help me, and if you can please do so.
I was Elizabeth, Queen of England, and died in 1603 a little-mourned woman.
Yes, I will do as you say.
Yes, I see the beautiful spirits.
I see your mother and she says that she will take me with her and show me the way to light and happiness and will love me, as God loves me as He does all His children.
So I am going with her and now I want to say that as you are my true friend and well-wisher I believe what you told me and want you to think kindly of me as not many do. So with my thanks, I will say Good night.