Person1533 – 1603

Elizabeth I

Also called: Queen Elizabeth I, Virgin Queen, Gloriana

Last Tudor queen of England (r. 1558–1603), who re-established the Church of England, defeated the Spanish Armada and chartered the East India Company

Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she was declared illegitimate after her mother’s execution and was imprisoned in the Tower of London under her sister Mary I. Coming to the throne at twenty-five, she never married and was called “the Virgin Queen”. With cautious diplomacy she upheld a religious settlement centred on the Church of England through a 45-year reign. Culture flourished, Shakespeare among others, in what is called the Elizabethan age. She died childless, ending the Tudor line, and James VI of Scotland became James I of England.

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1 related event

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1588Elizabeth I and the Defeat of the Spanish Armadamonarch
In 1588 the great fleet (the “Invincible Armada”) that Philip II of Spain sent against England was checked by the English navy in the Channel and then wrecked by storms — a starting point for England’s rise as a sea power.

Related works

Film: ElizabethDramatizedFilm · 1998 · Shekhar Kapur

Dramatized works (films, dramas, novels) may differ from the historical record.

People who appear alongside

Philip II of Spain1527 – 1598
King of Spain (r. 1556–1598), son of Charles V, who won at Lepanto and united Portugal with Spain but faced the Dutch Revolt and the defeat of his Armada

Themes this person appears in

Reformation and Absolutism1517 – 1796
From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states