Elizabeth I of England biography

Elizabeth I of England (September 7, 1533- 24 March 1603). Queen of England was born in the palace of Placentia, in Greenwich. Her father was King Henry VIII and her mother Anne Boleyn, Queen and second wife of Henry, she could not give him the son that the king and court longed for, gave birth to two daughters and unfortunately, a man who died after few hours of birth. Her death was tragic because her husband accused her of adultery and condemned her to death. She was condemned and beheaded on May 19, 1536. Elizabeth passed to the protection of Catherine Parr, the new wife of Henry VIII, who offered her a broad humanistic education and approached her to the Protestant faith.

The desire of the king to have a male descendant was so that he married again for the third time with Jane Seymour, with whom the long-awaited heir finally ended. This was a great time for Henry and Jane but a big blow for the two daughters of the king, as they were delegitimized and removed from the court for several years.

Upon the death of King Henry VIII, Edward occupied the throne. He was characterized by being a sickly child since his birth, he died when he was only fifteen years old. In spite of having two sisters who by his father’s disposition were to succeed him on the throne, Edward, influenced by the Duke of Northumberland, appointed his second cousin Lady Jane Gray as the legitimate heiress. That controversial episode in the monarchy of England ended in a few days with the death sentence of the premature Queen.

Due to this fact, Mary Tudor became Queen Mary I of England, on October 1, 1553. During her reign, England returned to Catholicism and there were convulsive times in which the Queen began fierce repression against all those opposed to the restoration of Catholicism, she ordered to burn at the stake 273 people, mostly Protestants. So the new Queen earned the sad nickname of Mary the Bloodthirsty. Her marriage to her cousin, Philip II, was not to the liking of the English court or parliament. The princess ended up imprisoned in the Tower of London. She died months later on November 17, 1558, without having left offspring.

“I know that I am the owner of a weak and fragile body of a woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, even more, of a king of England.” Elizabeth I of England

The descent of Mary I was a moment longed for by Elizabeth, by members of the court, the parliament and by the Protestant community of England. Elizabeth I got the reign of England and Ireland on January 15, 1559, after a crowded ceremony. When beginning the reign, the first thing that Elizabeth I of England did was to support the Protestants, to persecute the Catholics and to constitute the Church of England independently of Rome. In 1587 she beheaded Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scotland, in the castle of Fotheringhay, which was crystallized as a Catholic martyr. In addition, she led the war between England and Spain, the end resulted in the consecration of the maritime hegemony of England and the impulse of her expansionist enterprise.

During her reign, England experienced an important cultural and artistic renaissance, supported the proliferation of popular theaters and dramatic production, being over time one of the best in Europe. In 1576 the first public theater in London was built. England gave birth to artists of the caliber of John Lyly, Ben Johnson, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare.

It is considered one of the great monarchs in the history of England. Not only it did position England as a political and economic power, but it also fostered a great cultural development. As mentioned, Elizabeth I of England has gone down in history as one of the most influential women in the development of a country.

She was a cultured and intelligent person, determined and energetic, as well as cruel and eager for power. Throughout her life, she dodged marriage in order to seek independence from her performances and probably her wealth, for which she is known as the Virgin Queen, although it is known that she had several affairs, especially with Robert Dudley, the first Count of Leicester, who died surprisingly in 1588. Faced with the refusal of Elizabeth I of England to marry, comments of all kinds arose, even her sexual orientation was questioned.

In her last years she suffered several ailments, she suffered from insomnia and depression, she suffered general weakness and, her mental health was not the best, she lived tormented by the death of Mary, Queen of the Scots. She died prostrate on cushions that her bridesmaids had spread on the floor, perhaps due to natural death, pneumonia and even intoxication with ceruse, a substance present in her makeup. It really is not known what was the exact cause of the death of Elizabeth I of England. She died at the age of 69 on March 24, 1603, at the Richmond Palace, on the banks of the River Thames, where she used to go hunting deer.