A rare portrait of Elizabeth prior to her accession, attributed to William Scrots. It was painted for her father in c. 1546.
College/University
Career
Gallery of Elizabeth I
1560
Elizabeth receiving Dutch ambassadors, attributed to Levina Teerlinc.
Gallery of Elizabeth I
1595
Portrait of Elizabeth I attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or his studio.
Gallery of Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I in her coronation robes, patterned with Tudor roses and trimmed with ermine.
Gallery of Elizabeth I
Portrait commemorating the defeat of the Spanish Armada depicted in the background. Elizabeth's hand rests on the globe, symbolizing her international power. One of three known versions of the "Armada Portrait."
Gallery of Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I, painted after 1620, during the first revival of interest in her reign. Time sleeps on her right and Death looks over her left shoulder; two putti hold the crown above her head.
Portrait commemorating the defeat of the Spanish Armada depicted in the background. Elizabeth's hand rests on the globe, symbolizing her international power. One of three known versions of the "Armada Portrait."
Elizabeth I, painted after 1620, during the first revival of interest in her reign. Time sleeps on her right and Death looks over her left shoulder; two putti hold the crown above her head.
The Pelican Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard. The pelican was thought to nourish its young with its own blood and served to depict Elizabeth as the "mother of the Church of England."
Elizabeth I was the queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603. She was the last of the House of Tudor's monarch.
Background
Elizabeth was born on September 7, 1533, at Greenwich Palace to King Henry VIII of England and his second wife Anne Boleyn. Because of her father's continuing search for a male heir, Elizabeth's early life was precarious. In May 1536 her mother was beheaded to clear the way for Henry's third marriage, and on July 1 Parliament declared that Elizabeth and her older sister, Mary, the daughter of Henry's first queen, were illegitimate and that the succession should pass to the issue of his third wife, Jane Seymour. Jane did produce a male heir, Edward, but even though Elizabeth had been declared illegitimate, she was brought up in the royal household.
Education
Elizabeth I had a sharp brain ever since her childhood. Her education was given much value and Katherine Champernowne was employed as her first tutor. This tutor later got married to Sir John Ashley. Little Elizabeth used to call the tutor Kat. In the autumn of 1536, Katherine who was highly educated was chosen as Elizabeth's governess and set the foundation of her education.
She taught Elizabeth with a lot of dedication until she knew how to read and write, English and Grammar. Along with that Elizabeth learned the rules of etiquette. As a matter of fact, during her reign, she was the most well behaved and polite queen that ever lived. She was taught to respect her elders as well as embroidery. In those days this was a very important skill for women. Elizabeth's memory was excellent enabling her to get a tremendous grasp of the English language as young as six years of age. She then started learning other foreign languages. In that case, her tutor Kat taught her the principles of the Latin language. She was so fluent in the language to an extent people thought it was her mother tongue.
When Kat had taught her all she could Elizabeth shared her brother's tutors known as Jean Belmain a French teacher, Richard Cox, Provost of Eton a Greek and Latin teacher, John Cheke a regius professor of Greek among others. But check noticed Elizabeth’s ability and suggested to her stepmother Parr that she needed a private tutor. William Grindal became her new tutor, he started teaching Greek to Elizabeth putting some emphasis on the New Testament readings and Greek classics in the morning. In the afternoon they would study Latin paying special attention to the works of Cicero and Livius. In addition, she learned Theology, philosophy, maths, geometry, History, and Literature. But she was perfect in foreign languages and at the tender age of 11 years, she fluently spoke Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and English. Unfortunately, Grindal died in 1548 and Roger Ascham replaced his position as a tutor to Elizabeth. He was Yorkshireman who had studied at Cambridge. He guided Elizabeth in reading and analyzing the old Greek and Roman classics. Though he used Grindal routine in handling his student. In that case, he selected a test that supplied Elizabeth’s brain with the purest and quality diction and excellent effective precepts. In addition, she learned sewing, dancing, and music. She learned to hunt and practice archery as well. The education and the skills she received made her the queen she was.
During the short reign of her brother, Edward VI, Elizabeth survived precariously, especially in 1549 when the principal persons in her household were arrested and she was to all practical purposes a prisoner at Hatfield. In this period she experienced ill health but pursued her studies under her tutor, Roger Ascham. In 1553, following the death of Edward VI, her sister Mary I came to the throne with the intention of leading the country back to Catholicism.
The young Elizabeth found herself involved in the complicated intrigue that accompanied these changes. Without her knowledge, the Protestant Sir Thomas Wyatt plotted to put her on the throne by overthrowing Mary. The rebellion failed, and though Elizabeth maintained her innocence, she was sent to the Tower. After two months she was released against the wishes of Mary's advisers and was removed to an old royal palace at Woodstock. In 1555 she was brought to Hampton Court, still in custody, but on October 18 was allowed to take up residence at Hatfield, where she resumed her studies with Ascham.
On November 17, 1558, Mary died, and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne. Elizabeth's reign was to be looked back on as a golden age when England began to assert itself internationally through the mastery of sea power. The condition of the country seemed far different, however, when she came to the throne. The realm exhausted. The nobility was poor and decayed. Want of good captains and soldiers. The people out of order.
It is significant that one of her first actions as queen was to appoint Sir William Cecil (later Lord Burghley) as her chief secretary.
Since Elizabeth was unmarried, the question of the succession and the actions of other claimants to the throne bulked large. It would be many years before the search for a suitable husband ended, and the Parliament reconciled itself to the fact that the Queen would not marry. By refusing to marry, Elizabeth could further her general policy of balancing the Continental powers. Against this must be set the realization that it was a very dangerous policy. Had Elizabeth succumbed to illness, as she nearly did early in her reign, or had any one of the many assassination plots against her succeeded, the country would have been plunged into the chaos of a disputed succession. That the accession of James I on her death was peaceful was due as much to the luck of her survival as it was to the wisdom of her policy.
England had experienced both a sharp swing to Protestantism under Edward VI and a Catholic reaction under Mary. The question of the nature of the Church needed to be settled immediately, and it was hammered out in Elizabeth's first Parliament in 1559. A retention of Catholicism was not politically feasible, as the events of Mary's reign showed, but the settlement achieved in 1559 represented something more of a Puritan victory than the Queen desired. The settlement enshrined in the Acts of Supremacy and Conformity may in the long run have worked out as a compromise, but in 1559 it indicated to Elizabeth that her control of Parliament was not complete.
Though the settlement achieved in 1559 remained essentially unchanged throughout Elizabeth's reign, the conflict over religion was not stilled.
The Church of England, of which Elizabeth stood as supreme governor, was attacked by both Catholics and Puritans. Estimates of Catholic strength in Elizabethan England are difficult to make, but it is clear that a number of Englishmen remained at least residual Catholics.
Because of the danger of a Catholic rising against the Crown on behalf of the rival claimant, Mary, Queen of Scots, who was in custody in England from 1568 until her execution in 1587, Parliament pressed the Queen repeatedly for harsher legislation to control the recusants. It is apparent that the Queen resisted, on the whole successfully, these pressures for political repression of the English Catholics. While the legislation against the Catholics did become progressively sterner, the Queen was able to mitigate the severity of its enforcement and retain the patriotic loyalty of many Englishmen who were Catholic in sympathy. For their part the Puritans waged a long battle in the Church, in Parliament, and in the country at large to make the religious settlement more radical.
Under the influence of leaders like Thomas Cartwright and John Field, and supported in Parliament by the brothers Paul and Peter Wentworth, the Puritans subjected the Elizabethan religious settlement to great stress. The Queen found that she could control Parliament through the agency of her privy councilors and the force of her own personality. It was, however, some time before she could control the Church and the countryside as effectively. It was only with the promotion of John Whitgift to the archbishopric of Canterbury that she found her most effective clerical weapon against the Puritans. With apparent royal support but some criticism from Burghley, Whitgift was able to use the machinery of the Church courts to curb the Puritans.
By the 1590s the Puritan movement was in some considerable disarray. Many of its prominent patrons were dead, and by the publication of the bitterly satirical Marprelate Tracts, some Puritan leaders brought the movement into general disfavor.
At Elizabeth's accession England was not strong enough, either in men or money, to oppose vigorously either of the Continental powers, France or Spain. England was, however, at war with France. Elizabeth quickly brought this conflict to a close on more favorable terms than might have been expected. Throughout the early years of the reign, France appeared to be the chief foreign threat to England because of the French connections of Mary, Queen of Scots. By the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1560, Elizabeth was able to close off a good part of the French threat as posed through Scotland. The internal religious disorders of France also aided the English cause. Equally crucial was the fact that Philip II of Spain was not anxious to further the Catholic cause in England so long as its chief beneficiary would be Mary, Queen of Scots, and through her, his own French rivals. In the 1580s Spain emerged as the chief threat to England. The years from 1570 to 1585 were ones of neither war nor peace, but Elizabeth found herself under increasing pressure from Protestant activists to take a firmer line against Catholic Spain. Increasingly she connived in privateering voyages against Spanish shipping; her decision in 1585 to intervene on behalf of the Netherlands in its revolt against Spain by sending an expeditionary force under the Earl of Leicester meant the temporary end of the Queen's policy of balance and peace.
The struggle against Spain culminated in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The Queen showed a considerable ability to rally the people around herself.
The decade of 1590s witnessed the beginning of the "second reign" of Elizabeth. The period was marked by inflation and severe economic depression. Adding to the woes was an inexperienced new generation of rulers in the Queen’s Privy Council or governing body. Unlike the former era, factional strife within the government was dominant. Furthermore, her authority within the country diminished sharply.
Queen Elizabeth’s second reign was instrumental in producing unmatched and unrivaled literature. Prolific writers, authors and literary greats such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe came into prominence with their unsurpassed literary works. It was during her reign, fondly referred to as the Elizabethan era that English theatre reached its peak.
For all the greatness of her reign, the reign that witnessed the naval feats of Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins and the literary accomplishments of Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe, it was a shaky inheritance that Elizabeth would pass on to her successor, the son of her rival claimant, Mary, Queen of Scots. In March 1603, she became severely sick. On March 24, 1603, the Queen died.
When Elizabeth came to power, English people suffered from a major religious discord. Elizabeth chose a middle route and was relatively tolerant and moderate in her approach. She carefully maneuvered on the religious front and secured a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism by reinstating the Church of England.
On the military front, her victory against the Spanish Armada in 1588 marked one of the greatest military victories in English history.
Elizabeth’s reign was sometimes referred to as England's Golden Age or Elizabethan England, an era of peace and prosperity when the arts had a chance to blossom with Elizabeth's support.
Religion
Elizabeth's personal religious convictions have been much debated by scholars. She was a Protestant, but kept Catholic symbols (such as the crucifix), and downplayed the role of sermons in defiance of a key Protestant belief.
In terms of public policy, she favored pragmatism in dealing with religious matters. The question of her legitimacy was a key concern: although she was technically illegitimate under both Protestant and Catholic law, her retroactively declared illegitimacy under the English church was not a serious bar compared to having never been legitimate as the Catholics claimed she was. For this reason alone, it was never in serious doubt that Elizabeth would embrace Protestantism.
Politics
Elizabeth I was a political pragmatist, cautious and essentially conservative. She appreciated England's limited position in the face of France and Spain, and she knew that the key to England's success lay in balancing the two great Continental powers off against each other, so that neither could bring its full force to bear against England.
Views
Elizabeth I steered England towards its overseas role succeeding in almost all her endeavors. She proved that women can be efficient and effective leaders and cleared the way for having future female monarchs.
Quotations:
''Princes have big ears which hear far and near.''
''When I received this [coronation] ring I solemnly bound myself in marriage to the realm; and it will be quite sufficient for the memorial of my name and for my glory, if, when I die, an inscription be engraved on a marble tomb, saying, "Here lieth Elizabeth, which reigned a virgin, and died a virgin."''
''A fool too late bewares when all the peril is past.''
''A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.''
''Fear not, we are of the nature of the lion, and cannot descend to the destruction of mice and such small beasts.''
''I am no lover of pompous title, but only desire that my name may be recorded in a line or two, which shall briefly express my name, my virginity, the years of my reign, the reformation of religion under it, and my preservation of peace.''
"I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too."
"I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married."
"I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen, as to be a Queen over so thankful a people."
Personality
What Elizabeth I lacked in feminine warmth, she made up for in the worldly wisdom she had gained from a difficult and unhappy youth.
While she worked hard at court, Elizabeth took time for leisurely pursuits. She loved music and could play the lute. Thomas Tallis and William Byrd were among her court musicians. Elizabeth also enjoyed dancing and watching plays. Elizabeth's reign supported the creation of works by such greats as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.
Writers paid tribute to the queen in many literary forms. The poet Edmund Spenser based his character of Gloriana in The Faerie Queen on Elizabeth, and she was sometimes referred to by this name.
Portraiture was the reigning form of painting at the time, and artists honored Elizabeth by painting her portrait. These images reveal that Elizabeth was an early fashionista in many ways. She loved jewelry and beautiful clothing; her garments were often made with gold and silver. With the help of makeup, Elizabeth cultivated a dramatically pale look.
It’s believed that the cosmetic concoction Elizabeth used to cultivate her infamously pale look may have impacted her health and contributed to her death.
Physical Characteristics:
At the age of 25 Elizabeth was a rather tall and well-poised woman.
Interests
playing lute, theater, dance
Philosophers & Thinkers
Cicero, Livius
Writers
Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe
Sport & Clubs
archery
Music & Bands
Thomas Tallis, William Byrd
Connections
Elizabeth maintained what many thoughts were dangerously close relations with her favorite, Robert Dudley, whom she raised to the earldom of Leicester. She abandoned this flirtation when scandal arising from the mysterious death of Dudley's wife in 1560 made the connection politically disadvantageous. In the late 1570s and early 1580s she was courted in turn by the French Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Alençon. But by the mid-1580s it was clear she would not marry.
Elizabeth had an older half-sister, Mary Tudor, who was the king’s first child with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and the only to survive to adulthood.
Elizabeth and Mary were declared to be illegitimate as their father sought to pave the way to the throne for Edward, his male heir. The girls were later reinstated as potential heirs.
Even though Elizabeth supported Mary in her coup, she was not free from suspicion. A staunch Roman Catholic, Mary sought to restore her country back to her faith, undoing her father's break from the Pope. While Elizabeth went along with the religious change, she remained a candidate for the throne for those who wanted a return to Protestantism.
In 1554, Thomas Wyatt organized a rebellion against Mary in the hopes of making Elizabeth queen and restoring Protestantism to England. His plot was uncovered, and Mary quickly imprisoned Elizabeth. Although Elizabeth disputed any involvement in the conspiracy, her sister was not wholly convinced.
Although she was soon released, Elizabeth's life was firmly in her sister's hands. Wyatt was executed, but he maintained that Elizabeth was not aware of the rebellion. Elizabeth eventually returned to Hatfield and continued with her studies. In 1558, Elizabeth ascended to the throne upon Mary Tudor’s death.
Brother:
Edward VI Of England
Elizabeth had a younger half-brother, Edward, who was the king’s first and only legitimate son with his third wife, Jane Seymour. Upon Henry VIII’s death in 1547, Edward succeeded his father as King Edward VI.
Edward VI died just six years later, in 1553. Mary Tudor and their cousin, Lady Jane Grey, both were in line for the crown.
Edward had appointed Grey to be his successor. Her reign proved to be very short: Mary gained the support of the English people and unseated Grey after only nine days on the throne.
