![]() The memories must also have resonated with Elizabeth, still only 25. The new queen’s arrival at the Tower of London on the eve of her coronation reminded the optimistic and celebratory crowds of her previous imprisonment. The country was divided by religion and isolated in European politics, and the last years of Mary’s reign had seen failed military campaigns, food shortages, bitter winters and the return of the plague. But in 1558, England’s future was uncertain. By tradition, she was seated under an ancient oak tree – a fitting setting for a queen destined to establish an English ‘golden age’ perhaps. Edward VI (left), Royal Collection Trust/ (c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, RCIN 404747 and Thomas Seymour (right), © National Portrait Gallery, LondonĮlizabeth received the news of her sister’s death at Hatfield on 17 November 1558. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, charged with Elizabeth’s questioning, reported, 'I do see it in her face that she is guilty.' The young Princess would have to learn to mask her true feelings if she was to survive the tempestuous politics of Tudor England.Įlizabeth had grown close to the new king, her brother Edward, but the Seymour affair strained their relationship. Elizabeth was less than forthcoming, admitting only that she knew of Seymour’s ambition, but that she had never encouraged him. Seymour was beheaded for treason two months after his arrest.Įdward, suspicious of his sister’s involvement, sought answers. He perhaps saw Elizabeth as a means of acquiring power, but in January 1549 he was arrested for conspiring to kidnap the King, and his lecherous behaviour with Elizabeth was unmasked. But later that year, Katherine died in childbirth, and Seymour renewed his attentions. In the spring of 1548, Elizabeth was sent away. Katherine reportedly found Seymour alone in a room with Elizabeth, his arms around the princess. Thomas Seymour’s harassment of the 14-year-old Elizabeth became insidiously more dangerous. Reproduced by permission of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House Queen Elizabeth I, 'The Rainbow Portrait' (detail), by Isaac Oliver, c1600. But how much of this can possibly be true? Was Elizabeth’s 44-year reign really a ‘golden era’ of English history? God listened, and the Spanish Armada was defeated.Įlizabeth became a legend in her own lifetime, praised by poets and immortalised by artists as ‘Gloriana’, an immortal goddess sworn to protect a nation thriving in a cultural renaissance, the age of Shakespeare. In 1588, when Spain threatened to invade, she made one of the most famous speeches in royal history to inspire her troops. The ‘Virgin Queen’ never married, but instead pledged her body to England itself. ![]() What would happen next?Īgainst the odds, Elizabeth’s personal bravery and charisma, mixed with a natural inclination to compromise rather than dictate, helped stabilise the country. Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, the condemned traitor-queen, had even been imprisoned in the Tower of London, and held under house arrest at Hampton Court, on suspicion of plotting against Mary: this was a Tudor dynasty at war with itself. Since the death of her father, Henry VIII, in 1547, the reigns of Elizabeth’s brother Edward VI (1547-53) and sister Mary I (1553-58) had seen England beset by religious conflict and impoverished by war. Elizabeth I became queen in 1558 at a time of political crisis. ![]()
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