Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I ruled England for forty-four years, settled its religion, and defeated the Spanish Armada. Born in 1533 to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she was declared illegitimate at two when her mother was executed, and her position depended thereafter on the shifting favour of others. She was superbly educated by Roger Ascham, fluent in Latin, French and Italian. She was imprisoned in the Tower for two months in 1554 under her Catholic half-sister Mary, suspected of complicity in Wyatt's rebellion, and survived by admitting nothing. She succeeded in November 1558 at twenty-five. The Religious Settlement of 1559 restored royal supremacy over the church and imposed a Book of Common Prayer deliberately ambiguous enough that most people could conform — a via media that ended two decades of violent reversals. She said she had no desire to make windows into men's souls. She never married, using the prospect of her hand as a diplomatic instrument for twenty years while refusing every suitor, which preserved her independence and left the succession unresolved. Robert Dudley was the personal attachment of her life. She kept Mary, Queen of Scots imprisoned for nineteen years and signed her death warrant in 1587 after the Babington plot, then blamed her secretary for despatching it. Philip II's Armada sailed in 1588 and was broken by fireships at Calais, English gunnery and the weather. Her speech at Tilbury claimed the heart and stomach of a king. Her later years brought war in Ireland, bad harvests, monopolies and factional strife. She presided over Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Drake and the first colonial ventures, and died in 1603.
- Lived: 1533 CE – 1603 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: queen, head_of_state
