England’s Greatest Queens E-Book

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 99

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

When Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, many commentators heralded the beginning of her reign as the second Elizabethan age. The first one, of course, concerned the reign of Henry VIII’s second surviving daughter and middle surviving child, Queen Elizabeth I, one of England’s most famous and influential rulers. It was an age when the arts, commerce and trade flourished. It was the epoch of gallantry and great, enduring literature. It was also an age of wars and military conflicts in which men were the primary drivers and women often were pawns.

Elizabeth I changed the rules of the game and indeed she herself was changed by the game. She was a female monarch of England, a kingdom that had unceremoniously broken with the Catholic Church, and the Vatican and the rest of Christendom was baying for her blood. She had had commercial and militaristic enemies galore. In the end, she helped change the entire structure of female leadership.

Elizabeth was the last Tudor sovereign, the daughter of the cruel and magnificent King Henry VIII and a granddaughter of the Tudor House’s founder, the shrewd Henry VII. Elizabeth, hailed as “Good Queen Bess,” “Gloriana” and “The Virgin Queen” to this day in the public firmament, would improve upon Henry VIII’s successes and mitigate his failures, and despite her own failings would turn out to “have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too”. Indeed, that was the phrase she would utter in describing herself while exhorting her troops to fight for England against the Spanish Armada).

Elizabeth often has been featured in biographies that were more like hagiographies, glossing over her fits of temper, impatience and other frailties. It is fair to say, however, that she had also inherited her grandfather’s political acumen and her father’s magnificence, thus creating not just one of the most colourful courts in Europe but also one of the most effective governments in English history. It was an age of Christopher Marlowe’s and William Shakespeare’s flourishing creativity that still enhances English as well as comparative literature. Elizabeth was also patroness of Sir Francis Drake, the pirate, thereby promoting English settlement of foreign colonies. The Jamestown Settlement in Virginia would come in 1607, four years after Elizabeth’s passing, and the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts would come in 1620.

England has had no shortage of influential monarchs, but only Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria had their nation’s age literally named after them. Both the Elizabethan era and Victorian era have come to symbolize a golden age of peace and progress in every aspect of British life, with the long reigns of both queens also providing stability.

Of course, there was a critical difference between those two queens: Elizabeth I still wielded great power in the 16th century, whereas Victoria was a constitutional monarch with limited power over the workings of the British government. But in a way, that made Victoria even more unique, as she still proved able to mold the cultural identity of a nearly 65 year long epoch. Furthermore, Victoria established some of the ceremonial customs of the British monarch and became both the forerunner and role model of subsequent queens, a legacy that continues to endure with her great-great granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Though Britain’s longest reigning monarch is now mostly associated with conservative values (particularly strict morality and traditional social and gender roles), Victoria and her era oversaw the cultural and technological progress of Britain and the West in general, architectural revivals, and the expansion of imperialism.  

Leseprobe

England’s Greatest Queens: The Lives and Legacies of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria

By Charles River Editors

About Charles River Editors

Charles River Editors was founded by Harvard and MIT alumni to provide superior editing and original writing services, with the expertise to create digital content for publishers across a vast range of subject matter. In addition to providing original digital content for third party publishers, Charles River Editors republishes civilization’s greatest literary works, bringing them to a new generation via ebooks.

Introduction

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

"Video et taceo." ("I see, and say nothing") – Queen Elizabeth I

When Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, many commentators heralded the beginning of her reign as the second Elizabethan age. The first one, of course, concerned the reign of Henry VIII’s second surviving daughter and middle surviving child, Queen Elizabeth I, one of England’s most famous and influential rulers. It was an age when the arts, commerce and trade flourished. It was the epoch of gallantry and great, enduring literature. It was also an age of wars and military conflicts in which men were the primary drivers and women often were pawns.

Elizabeth I changed the rules of the game and indeed she herself was changed by the game. She was a female monarch of England, a kingdom that had unceremoniously broken with the Catholic Church, and the Vatican and the rest of Christendom was baying for her blood. She had had commercial and militaristic enemies galore. In the end, she helped change the entire structure of female leadership.

Elizabeth was the last Tudor sovereign, the daughter of the cruel and magnificent King Henry VIII and a granddaughter of the Tudor House’s founder, the shrewd Henry VII. Elizabeth, hailed as “Good Queen Bess,” “Gloriana” and “The Virgin Queen” to this day in the public firmament, would improve upon Henry VIII’s successes and mitigate his failures, and despite her own failings would turn out to “have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too”. Indeed, that was the phrase she would utter in describing herself while exhorting her troops to fight for England against the Spanish Armada).

Elizabeth often has been featured in biographies that were more like hagiographies, glossing over her fits of temper, impatience and other frailties. It is fair to say, however, that she had also inherited her grandfather’s political acumen and her father’s magnificence, thus creating not just one of the most colourful courts in Europe but also one of the most effective governments in English history. It was an age of Christopher Marlowe’s and William Shakespeare’s flourishing creativity that still enhances English as well as comparative literature. Elizabeth was also patroness of Sir Francis Drake, the pirate, thereby promoting English settlement of foreign colonies. The Jamestown Settlement in Virginia would come in 1607, four years after Elizabeth’s passing, and the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts would come in 1620.

Elizabeth had also fought for her life time and time again in an era that was already unsafe for female leaders and she probably had remembered the searing feeling of realizing that her mother Queen Anne (Anne Boleyn) had been executed by her father arguably on a trumped-up charge. Danger was pervasive; strategy was needed not just to thrive but just to survive.

England’s Greatest Queens chronicles the life and reign of England’s most famous queen, but it also humanizes the woman who ruled one of the world’s most powerful kingdoms in an age dominated by men. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in her life, you will learn about Elizabeth I like you never have before, in no time at all.

Queen Victoria (1819-1901)

“Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.” – Queen Victoria, 1837

England has had no shortage of influential monarchs, but only Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria had their nation’s age literally named after them. Both the Elizabethan era and Victorian era have come to symbolize a golden age of peace and progress in every aspect of British life, with the long reigns of both queens also providing stability.

Of course, there was a critical difference between those two queens: Elizabeth I still wielded great power in the 16th century, whereas Victoria was a constitutional monarch with limited power over the workings of the British government. But in a way, that made Victoria even more unique, as she still proved able to mold the cultural identity of a nearly 65 year long epoch. Furthermore, Victoria established some of the ceremonial customs of the British monarch and became both the forerunner and role model of subsequent queens, a legacy that continues to endure with her great-great granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Though Britain’s longest reigning monarch is now mostly associated with conservative values (particularly strict morality and traditional social and gender roles), Victoria and her era oversaw the cultural and technological progress of Britain and the West in general, architectural revivals, and the expansion of imperialism. While some of these developments have been perceived negatively over a century later, Britons of the 19th century and early 20th century often viewed the Victorian Era as the height of their nation’s power and influence.

England’s Greatest Queens chronicles the life and reign of Queen Victoria, while examining the enduring legacy of the era in British history named after her. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in her life, you will learn about Queen Victoria like you never have before, in no time at all.

England’s Greatest Queens: The Lives and Legacies of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria

About Charles River Editors

Introduction

Queen Elizabeth I

Chapter 1: Early Life, 1533-1558

Chapter 2: The First Part of Elizabeth’s Reign, 1558-1587

Handling Religious Divisions

The Virgin Queen

A Challenge to Elizabeth’s Throne

Chapter 3: Final Part of Elizabeth’s Reign, 1587-1603

Preserving England

Managing Foreign Affairs

The Elizabethan Era

Epilogue

Queen Victoria

Chapter 1: Victoria’s Early Years

Chapter 2: Albert

Chapter 3: The Queen’s Children

Chapter 4: Changes in Victoria's Empire

Chapter 5: The Business of Reigning

Chapter 6: Religion and Imperialism

Chapter 7: Celebrating the Queen’s Reign

Chapter 8: Victoria’s Legacy

Queen Elizabeth I

Chapter 1: Early Life, 1533-1558

The Lady Elizabeth in about 1546, by an unknown artist

Born September 7, 1533 at Greenwich Palace in England, as the daughter of England’s sovereign King Henry VIII of England, Ireland and (nominally) France and his wife Anne Boleyn, Princess Elizabeth was born at a time of great strife in England. Her father Henry VIII had broken with the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, and the Catholic Church at The Vatican in order to annul his marriage to his first wife, Infanta Catherine of Aragon (later Queen Catherine) on grounds that part of the Book of Leviticus (stating “If a brother is to marry the wife of a brother they will remain childless.”) forbade their marriage. This is because Catherine had been married to Henry’s older brother and the erstwhile Prince of Wales, Arthur, but the Biblical passage had already technically been proven wrong by the birth of daughter Mary in 1516. Moreover, a much hoped-for Prince and male heir named Henry had been born in 1511, only to die after a few weeks as the infant Henry, Duke of Cornwall.

There were actually several reasons Henry sought to dissolve the marriage, using the religious one as a clearly faulty pretense. Henry believed that Catherine’s inability to give Henry and England a surviving male heir made her a failure, and the ever-philandering Henry had become completely infatuated with Anne Boleyn. For those reasons, Henry clearly believed that he and Anne should marry in order to produce the next heir to the throne.

King Henry VIII

Unfortunately for Henry, Catherine of Aragon was a well-connected woman in Europe, which had made her such an attractive bride for Henry’s older brother in the first place. The daughter of Ferdinand and Isabelle, Catherine was related to the Holy Roman Emperor, and the power players in Rome had no interest in dissolving Henry’s marriage with her.

Catherine of Aragon

Henry had always been a believer in Catholic doctrine, so much so that he had taken great offense at Martin Luther’s and later John Calvin’s “heresies”1 and had published his own tract in defense of the Mother Church, a book fittingly named In Defence of the Seven Sacraments. But Henry put his own power and family’s royal line ahead of his Catholic faith, and he took a number of steps to break with The Vatican. In a move that would have global repercussions for centuries, Henry founded the Church of England and became the new church’s supreme head and governor, successfully exhorting Parliament to pass several acts so adjusting and thereby capitalizing on the English pride of self-determination (as opposed to the idea of foreign domination via The Vatican). Henry remained, in theological terms, “Defender of the Faith” (the title that the Church had conferred upon him and which the British monarch still retains). Elizabeth, who was not nearly as concerned about theological questions would still use Henry’s brand of nationalism to unite her people during her monarchical tenure.

Anne Boleyn

By establishing the Church of England, Henry could make his own rules, so to speak, and he used the break with the Church to dissolve his marriage with Catherine. In 1533, Henry and Anne were married, but the honeymoon phase wouldn’t last long, with tragic consequences for Henry’s new wife. However alluring and seductive Henry had found Anne’s playful manner before the wedding, he soon began to tire of her, due in no small part to her unbending, stubborn nature. Anne also had a nasty habit of political machinations, especially dealing with religion, which came at a time when religious divisions within England were at their peak. Most importantly, Henry believed Anne was a failure, just like Catherine, because she hadn’t given Henry a surviving male heir. Elizabeth’s birth had not been particularly welcome by Henry (who wanted a male heir for England to succeed him as the next ruler of the House of Tudor) or by Anne (who herself had deposed a queen consort and thus had set a dangerous precedent that could hoist her own petard).

Nonetheless, Elizabeth I’s birth made her the Inheritrix Presumptive to the English throne at the time. King Henry VIII’s elder daughter Mary (later to go down in history as “Bloody” Mary I of England, a staunch Catholic, and later a persecutor of Protestant “heretics”) was delegitimized via Act of Succession 1533 (First Succession Act) upon Elizabeth’s birth, and her life was made rather miserable. Mary was compelled to be a lady-in-waiting to the infant Elizabeth, the same infant who had replaced Mary in the line of succession. A greater humiliation would be harder to imagine. Elizabeth’s place would not last long. Queen Anne’s miscarriage of a male heir, upon hearing the news of her husband’s hunting accident, made her especially vulnerable. King Henry VIII now had lost his patience with Anne, as he had with Queen Catherine.

Henry was caught in a bind, and his actions would affect his infant daughter’s psychology for the rest of her life. Henry could not again afford a messy, long, drawn-out annulment process, and unlike Queen Catherine, who had had a powerful ally in Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, Anne’s almost exclusively English ancestry conferred upon her no diplomatic or political leverage that might have given her protection against Henry’s wrath. Henry had had Anne framed of various crimes, namely incest and adultery, under the alarming and death penalty-eligible headline of “high treason” against the King’s Majesty.