Queen of England (1533-1603). The
daughter of
Henry VIII and his second wife,
Ann Boleyn, Elizabeth Tudor was considered a
bastard (and unfit for the throne) by many
English Catholics because the
Church did not recognize Henry's
divorce from his first wife. In fact, Henry himself declared Elizabeth a
bastard after having Ann
executed, but he later made her
third in succession to the throne, after her younger brother
Edward and older sister
Mary.
After Henry's
death in 1547, his last wife,
Katherine Parr, married one of Edward's
uncles. He
flirted with Elizabeth and, when Katherine died in
childbirth, he sought to
marry Elizabeth, even though it was considered
treason for her to consider the
union. He was condemned to
death; Elizabeth was found
innocent.
After Edward died in 1553, Mary became
queen and tried to force
Catholicism on
England. She
suspected that Elizabeth was
plotting against her, because all the
Protestants in England seemed to be
rooting for her to be queen, so Mary had Elizabeth
imprisoned in the
Tower of London. Again, she was
reprieved, partly at the urging of Mary's husband,
Philip of Spain.
Mary died in 1558, and the newly crowned
Queen Elizabeth moved quickly to end
religious conflict by adopting a "
don't ask, don't tell" policy on
dissent. She supported
Protestantism throughout her reign but opposed
religious rebellions. Her
religious tolerance was not shared by her cousin,
Mary Queen of Scots, who took
refuge in England after she was driven from her throne -- Mary
plotted against
Elizabeth constantly until her
execution in 1587.
Though
Parliament wanted Elizabeth to get
married and have
children (
monarchs without
heirs were a
Bad Thing back then), she was
reluctant. She allowed the
French and
Spanish royal families to
court her, mainly for
diplomatic reasons, but she loved
Robert Dudley. She made him the
Earl of Leicester, but never married him.
In her later years, Leicester died, as did her old
advisors. Leicester's stepson, the
Earl of Essex, served as her advisor for a while, but he attempted a
rebellion and was
beheaded. Her last major
act as Queen was to name
Mary Stuart's son
James as her
heir.
Elizabeth is still
revered as a great
ruler (well, not by the
Scottish. Or the
Catholics.) because she spent her 45-year reign transforming England from a nearly
bankrupt nation torn by religious
strife into a
world power.
Research from GURPS Who's Who, compiled by Phil Masters, "Elizabeth I" by William H. Stoddard, pp. 70-71.