Old Queen Lizzy the First
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It's only when I've been reading back through my blog posts that I realise I haven't even got a blog post that is solely about Elizabeth. I mean, there's loads of information about her in this blog but it's more to do with how she looks in portraits. So, this is what I've found after a little look on google:
" 'Good Queen Bess'
" 'Good Queen Bess'
Elizabeth I is one of England's greatest monarchs – perhaps the greatest. Her forces defeated the Spanish Armada and saved England from invasion, she reinstated Protestantism and forged an England that was a strong and independent nation.
But she had a very difficult childhood and was fortunate to make it to the throne at all. When she was young, her father Henry VIII executed her mother Anne Boleyn. She was stripped of her inheritance and was imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Born into the Tudor dynasty
Getty
Elizabeth's parents Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.
Elizabeth is born on 7 September in Greenwich Palace.
News of her birth causes rejoicing across the country, but is a bitter disappointment to her father Henry. He is desperate for a male heir to continue the Tudor dynasty. Although Elizabeth is made next in line to the throne, the King prays his next child will be male – superseding her claim to the throne.
1554
Imprisoned in the Tower of London
Mary Evans
Elizabeth held prisoner in the Tower of London.
After Edward’s early death in 1553 Elizabeth’s older sister Mary I becomes queen.
Mary returns the country to Catholicism and begins a series of bloody purges of Protestants. 287 are executed during her short reign. Mary’s plan to marry Prince Phillip of Spain sparks an unsuccessful rebellion and Elizabeth is interrogated about her involvement with the plotters. She is imprisoned in the Tower of London before being put under house arrest in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
1558
Elizabeth becomes Queen
Simon Schama describes Elizabeth I's coronation. Clip from A History of Britain by Simon Schama (BBC Two, 2000).
Following the death of her half-sister Mary, Elizabeth succeeds to the throne. She is 25.
Elizabeth has inherited a country wracked by religious strife and knows she needs public support to remain queen. The celebrations for the coronation the following year are spectacular. As her procession makes its way through London on its way to Westminster she pauses to listen to congratulations and receive flowers from ordinary people on the street.
I will be as good unto ye as ever a Queen was unto her people. No will in me can lack, neither do I trust shall there lack any power.