Which statement best describes Queen Elizabeth’s use of rhetorical appeals in this excerpt?
A. She relies on logos by listing for Parliament some of her personal reasons for wanting to remain unmarried and childless.
B. She relies on pathos by attempting to make the members of parliament feel sorry for her and the fact that she is unmarried and childless.
C. She relies on logos by providing reasons why Parliament should not worry about the fact that she is unmarried and childless.
D. She relies on pathos by making the members of Parliament feel foolish for worrying about the fact that she is unmarried and childless.
Read the excerpt from Queen Elizabeth’s Response to Parliament’s Request That She Marry:”The realm shall not remain destitute of any heir that may be a fit governour, and peradventure more beneficial to the realm, than such offspring as may come of me: For though I be never so careful of your well-doing, and mind ever so to be, yet may my issue grow out of kind, and become perhaps ungracious.”
Answer: C. She relies on logos by providing reasons why Parliament should not worry about the fact that she is unmarried and childless.
In this excerpt, Queen Elizabeth I, use of logos, appeals to Parliament’s need to be calm because she has not married nor does she have any children. She offers the logical reasons which would help to calm their fears concerning the matters of succession and the government of the realm in the future.
Elizabeth’s first logical argumentation is that the realm will not be left without a proper heir. She pompously presumes that there may be other potential successors who could be a fit governor for England. This is valid reasoning because it claims not the monarchy’s future is at risk because of the childlessness of the queen.
Furthermore, she introduces a compelling logical consideration: that a chosen successor might even be “more advantageous to the realm’ than any children that she might bear. This statement challenges Parliament to think beyond the lineage of a leader and instead focus on the kind of leader they want.
Elizabeth then offers the second half of the logical syllogism by stressing the unpredictability of hereditary rights. She also observes that even if she could have her children, they ‘‘would grow out of kind and become perhaps ungracious’’ This reasoning shows how the hereditary monarchy is uncertain; having own children does not guarantee produce suitable heir.
Thus, appealing to reason or logos, Queen Elizabeth is trying to remove concern for her unmarried and childless status. Using Parliament’s reason to influence them, she reasonably responds to the question of succession and governance.
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