Live at the Queen Elisabe

Product Information

This same period of economic and political uncertainty, however, produced an unsurpassed literary flowering in England. Elizabeth was placed in her half-brother's household and carried the chrisom, or baptismal cloth, at his christening. Elizabeth's supporters in the government, including William Paget, 1st Baron Paget, convinced Mary to spare her sister in the absence of hard evidence against her.

At first, only Elizabeth made a virtue of her ostensible virginity: in 1559, she told the Commons, "And, in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin". The modern convention is to use the old style calendar for the day and month while using the new style calendar for the year. She was a better ally than the chief alternative, Mary, Queen of Scots, who had grown up in France and was betrothed to the Dauphin of France. They are full of state papers sent to her from her various departments, embassies, and government offices. Shortly afterwards, on 15 May 1567, Mary married Bothwell, arousing suspicions that she had been party to the murder of her husband.

As Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, Nicholas Bacon, put it on her behalf to parliament in 1559, the queen "is not, nor ever meaneth to be, so wedded to her own will and fantasy that for the satisfaction thereof she will do anything. In 2002, within seven weeks of each other, the Queen's mother and sister, Princess Margaret, both died on 30 March and 9 February respectively. Prince Charles's marriage to Lady Diana Spencer was thought to be a fairytale wedding because Diana was young and beautiful, and they seemed very happy. Elizabeth was extremely jealous of his affections, even when she no longer meant to marry him herself. Costly wars against Spain and the Irish, involvement in the Netherlands, socio-economic distress, and an authoritarian turn by the regime all cast a pall over Gloriana's final years, underpinning a weariness with the queen's rule and open criticism of her government and its failures.

During this time, repression of Catholics intensified, and Elizabeth authorised commissions in 1591 to interrogate and monitor Catholic householders. In January 1549, Seymour was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower on suspicion of conspiring to depose his brother Somerset as Protector, marry Lady Jane Grey to King Edward VI, and take Elizabeth as his own wife. Mary's closest confidant, Emperor Charles's ambassador Simon Renard, argued that her throne would never be safe while Elizabeth lived; and Lord Chancellor Stephen Gardiner, worked to have Elizabeth put on trial.The Spanish Armada was intended to overthrow the Queen and re-establish Roman Catholicism by conquest, as Philip II believed he had a claim to the English throne through his marriage to Mary. However, Elizabeth's reign was one of considerable danger and difficulty for many, with threats of invasion from Spain through Ireland, and from France through Scotland. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, [5] who enjoyed more than her fair share of luck.