Elizabeth I
...of her mother in 1536, but in 1544 Parliament reestablished her in the succession
after her half brother, Edward (later Edward VI), and her half sister, Mary (later Mary I).
Elizabeth was well educated by a series of tutors, most notably Roger Ascham.
In 1553 she supported the claims of Mary I over Lady Jane Grey. After Mary was crowned,
Elizabeth was careful to avoid implication in the plot of the younger Sir Thomas Wyatt (1554).
Nevertheless, since Elizabeth's potential succession to the throne inevitably furnished a
rallying point for discontented Protestants, she was imprisoned. She later regained a measure
of freedom through outward conformity to Roman Catholicism.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed
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Reign
When Elizabeth succeeded her sister to the throne in 1558, religious strife, a huge government
debt, and failures in the war with France had brought England's fortunes to a low ebb.
Elizabeth came to the throne with the Tudor concept of strong rule and the realization that
effective rule depended upon popular support. She was able to select and work well with the
most competent of counselors. Sir William Cecil (Lord Burghley) was appointed immediately,
and Sir Francis Walsingham in 1573.
At her death 45 years later, England had passed through one of the greatest periods of its
history—a period that produced William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Francis Bacon,
Walter Raleigh, Martin Frobisher, Francis Drake, and other notable figures in literature and
exploration; a period that saw England, united as a nation, become a major European power
with a great navy; a period in which English commerce and industry prospered and English
colonization was begun.
Although Elizabeth has been accused, with some justice, of being vain, fickle,...
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