Elizabeth’s changefulness functioned as a deliberate strategy against time.

Evidence

But Elizabeth did more than merely profit by time: she baffled it; she seemed sometimes to annul it altogether. If she was always the same it was because she was always different. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 70

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to her maxim of profiting by time and the ‘wise passivity’ of the age’s statecraft mentioned just before. — connects to: Elizabeth’s policy of deliberate inconsistency preserved her freedom of action. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 70; Elizabeth’s mastery of time was ultimately only an illusion. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 72
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 70

Library Connections

• Elizabeth’s mastery of time was ultimately only an illusion. #complicates (0.75) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 72