The reign of Elizabeth I of England, the prototype of the authoritarian ruler of the sixteenth century, has a first-rate historical interest because it was the foundation of the greatness of England and laid the foundations of British dominance in Europe, which reached its zenith in the eighteenth and XIX. But the star of this golden age, known by the name "was Elizabethan", stands before us by his equally unusual private life, full of puzzles, dramatic moments, dangers and follies. Elizabeth I, sovereign character and overwhelming talent, he felt an almost pathological aversion to marriage and wanted to be remembered as the "Virgin Queen", but its many virtues, virginity was the only quite questionable.
The Queen
Divorce after the first of his six wives, Catherine of Aragon Spanish devout, in 1533 King Henry VIII of England married his mistress, the haughty and ambitious Anne Boleyn, who was in advanced pregnancy. The expected offspring should solve the problem caused by the lack of male descendants of the monarch, whom Catherine had only one daughter, Mary, who in time reign as Maria I. Although the new marriage was not recognized by the Church of Rome and Henry VIII had just been excommunicated by their sinful rebellion, the near and long-awaited birth of the prince rejoiced all hearts and the king first. Only remained for the sovereign to fulfill its mission alive and giving birth to a healthy child would be called Harry, like his father. On September 7, 1533 saw the happy event, but it turned out that Anne Boleyn gave birth to a child but not a girl, the future Elizabeth I of England.
A turbulent family
The king suffered a terrible disappointment. The fact that a female lighting considerably weakened the position of the queen, especially when the disappointed father was forced to break with Rome and declare independence from the Anglican Church, all for a prince who had never been conceived. When two years after Anne Boleyn gave birth to a son dead, his fate was sealed: he was accused of adultery, tried and beheaded at the age of twenty-nine. His daughter Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and was in the same situation that his sister Mary, daughter of Henry VIII's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon and seventeen years her senior. Both were deprived of their legitimate rights of inheritance to the throne of England.Isabel was ten when he returned to Greenwich, where he was born and was installed the court. It was a beautiful girl, wake up, like all Tudor red hair and slender as Anne Boleyn. There, in the hands of mentors close to Protestantism certainly received a good education which led him to have a solid humanistic. Read Greek and Latin and spoke perfect the major European languages at the time: French, Italian and Castilian. Catherine Parr was to her as a mother until the death of Henry VIII, who officially ordered before the expiration of the order of succession: first Edward, his heir male, then Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, and finally Elizabeth, daughter of his second wife. Catherine Parr sent rush the funeral and a fortnight later married Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen Jane, whose love had given up three years ago at the call of duty and royalty. This hasty marriage to Seymour, renowned seducer, was the first and only folly committed by Catherine Parr prudent and discreet throughout his life.
Thomas Seymour
Thomas Seymour had ambitions to be king and carefully considered all the possibilities. For him, Catherine Parr was only a stepping stone to the throne. Since Edward VI was a sickly boy and his immediate successor, Mary Tudor, also had poor health, was proposed to seduce the young Elizabeth, which presaged a long life force and whose head was the strongest candidate to encircle the crown in near future. The sweet words, kisses and caresses were soon apparent paternal love with Isabel, one day, Catherine Parr surprised embraced her husband and her stepdaughter, the princess was confined in Hatfield, north of London, and the familiarity of the libertine sexy began to circulate through the mouth of the courtiers.
Catherine Parr died in September 1548 and the English began to wonder if he would have been "helped" to travel to another world by her unfaithful husband, who was soon accused of "maintaining relations with His Grace the Princess Elizabeth" and "conspiring to marry her, since, as sister of His Majesty Edward, was likely to succeed to the throne. "The subsequent process gave the bones of Seymour in the Tower of London murky, but a brief prelude to final visit to the scaffold, the quinceanera princess, a fall from grace and about to follow in the footsteps of his ambitious love, he defended with unusual energy slander which accused her of carrying a child in the womb of Seymour and regions demonstrating a pride and an intelligence far beyond his years, left unscathed from the scandal. On March 20, 1549, Thomas Seymour's head was severed from his body by the executioner, to know, precocious only said Elizabeth coolly, "He died a man of much wit and little sense".
For the first time he had shown a quality that the future queen kept throughout his life: an exceptional talent to address the problems and come out victorious from the most compromised situations. While his distaste for marriage seemed to arise in the tragic episode of Seymour, Elizabeth also learned after the event the art of quick and clever counter-dissimulation, essential for survival in those turbulent days.
maria_i
When Edward died in 1553, Elizabeth I leaned against Mary Jane Grey, granddaughter of Henry VIII was proclaimed queen on July 10, 1553 to shortly after being arrested and sentenced to death in the process by Thomas Wyat's conspiracy, a movement to prevent the marriage of Mary I to his nephew Philip (later Philip II of Spain), in order to avoid the predictable reaction of the ultra-Catholic queen. During the investigation of this case, Elizabeth was imprisoned for several months in the Tower of London, as their penchant for Protestant doctrine was suspect in the eyes of her sister, despite the support that Elizabeth had given him.
Elizabethan era
Daughter and sister of kings, used to deal with adversity and stay away from the plots, Elizabeth I ascended the throne at twenty years old. She was the queen of England and was to be uncompromising with everything connected with the rights of the crown, but would continue to exercise caution, calculator and tolerant in everything else, with no aim to preserve their interests and those of his country, which lived religious seething intellectual and economic and had an exacerbated nationalist feelings. One of his first acts in government was appointed First Secretary of State Sir William Cecil, a man from the upper middle class and shared the wisdom and grace of the queen. Cecil remained confident of Elizabeth I for forty years when he died, his position as director was occupied by his son.
Elizabeth I before Parliament
The religious field, Elizabeth I restored Anglicanism and placed it on a compromise between the Protestant and Catholic tradition. In the political field the greatest threat came from Scotland, where Mary Queen of Scots, Catholic and Francophile, claimed their rights to the throne of England. In 1560, the Scottish Calvinists sought help from Elizabeth, who saw an opportunity to weaken his opponent, and in 1568, when the Scottish queen took refuge in England, was locked up in prison. Moreover, Elizabeth indirectly helped the Protestants of France and the Netherlands, while the British sailors and traders were aware of the possibilities facing the Atlantic and the Spanish monopoly in America.
It was therefore inevitable clash between England and Spain, the former ally in times of Mary I. While Philip II of Spain gave credit to his ambassador in London and at the same Mary Stuart, who claimed that in England there were conditions for a rebellion that would give the throne Catholic Mary Stuart, Queen Elizabeth and her advisor William Cecil supported privateering actions against Spanish interests were promoting the construction of a modern naval fleet and attempted to delay the confrontation between the two kingdoms. After being the center of several unsuccessful conspiracy in 1587 Mary Stuart was sentenced to death and executed. Felipe II, lost the trick of substituting for Maria Isabel, carefully prepared and announced to the four winds the invasion of England.
In 1588, after Drake attacked the Galician coast to avoid concentrations of ships, it sailed 130 ships of war and over 30 support vessels, manned by 8,000 sailors and nearly 20,000 soldiers, was the Armada, a which later, as planned, should support the 100,000 men who had Alessandro Farnese in Flanders. The Spanish raised a battle to the approach and landing, the English, however, had worked to perfect the war at sea. Its 200 ships, lighter and more maneuverable, they were manned by 12,000 sailors and their guns were more powerful than the Spanish. This, combined with the fury of the elements (as the Spanish ships were not the most suitable to withstand the storms of the ocean) took the English victory and the Spanish disaster.
Queen against the Armada
Queen Elizabeth I, who had personally harangued his troops, was considered the epitome of an English victory and increased the high degree of rapport with the people already had. After this high point of 1588, the last years of the reign of Elizabeth I appear quite gray, and in these stands only concern of the queen to bring order to finance the skinny English, the Irish rebellion, quickly suppressed, and the growth of radical Protestant .
Although one of the constants in England at the time of Elizabeth I were the dynastic conflict, the Queen never married. Have developed many theories about this fact, which they attribute to being single physical deformities to those seeking psychological explanations arising from their childhood trauma . In any case, Elizabeth I made several matrimonial negotiations, all of which played a thoroughly diplomatic letter to gain advantages for his country. On the other hand, had many favorites, from his great squire Lord Robert Dudley to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, twenty years younger than her and who paid with their lives for their attempt to blend the political influence with the affair, which Isabel I never allowed the men who gave their favors.
Humanistic education of Elizabeth I took an interest in the important events that occurred during his reign in the artistic field. The so called 'Elizabethan Renaissance "was evident in the architecture, music and above all in literature, with writers such as John Lyly, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare especially, true creators of the English national literature. As for the economy during his reign began the development of modern Britain . His religious policy allowed to settle in his dominions many refugees fleeing repression in the Netherlands, which, together with the government protectionism, pushed the cloth industry. The growth of trade and rivalry with Spain resulted in a great development of the shipbuilding industry.
Elizabeth I in a portrait attributed
By the year 1598, Isabel seemed, according to a scathing courtly expression, "a mummy naked and covered in jewels. " Calva, withered and grotesque, pretended to be still for their subjects the embodiment of virtue, justice and perfect beauty. Was gradually sinking into the shadows that predict death . The agony was pathetic. Although his body was covered with ulcers, continued ordering the richly dressed and adorned with flashy jewelry, and never stopped showing his emaciated gums smile every time an ambitious courtier and flatterer of dallying with a barely concealed sneer of disgust on their lips. He died on March 24, 1603, after appointing as a successor to James VI of Scotland and I of England, son of Mary Queen of Scots, which began the process of unification of the two kingdoms. His last act was to place his hand on his chest that wore the crown ring, testimony of the union, stronger than the marriage of the Virgin Queen with his kingdom and his beloved people.
