Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I of England (Greenwich, September 7, 1533-Richmond, March 24, 1603), nicknamed the Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, was Queen of England and Ireland from her accession to the throne on November 17, 1558, until her death in 1603. Her reign spanned more than four decades, was known as the Elizabethan era. She was also the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII of England and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeth's birth. Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her half-brother, Edward VI, ruled until his death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to Lady Joanna Gray and disregarding the claims of her two half-sisters, the Catholic Mary and the younger Elizabeth, despite the fact that the law provided otherwise. Edward's will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Jane Grey. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for almost a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

After the death of her half-sister in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and set out to rule, supported by a group of good advisers. She relied heavily on a group of trusted advisors, led by By Sir William Cecil. One of her first actions as her queen was the establishment of a Protestant Church independent of the Holy See, of which she became supreme governor. This decision would end up causing the definitive birth of the Church of England. Elizabeth was expected to marry and have an heir; however, despite numerous courtships, she never did. She was eventually succeeded by her relative, James VI of Scotland, who laid the foundations for the future Kingdom of Great Britain. Previously, she Elizabeth had been responsible for the imprisonment and execution of James's mother, Mary I of Scots.

During her rule, Elizabeth was much more moderate than her father and brothers. One of her slogans was "video et taceo" (Latin: & # 34; I see and I am silent & # 34;) In religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After Pope Pius V declared her illegitimate in 1570 and freed her subjects from her obedience to her, various conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were uncovered with the help of the secret service of the ministers of she. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, maneuvering between France and Spain, the major powers at the time. She half-heartedly supported a series of ineffective and under-resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. By the mid-1580s England could no longer avoid war with Spain. The failure of the invasion of England by the Great Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history.

As she aged, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult of personality grew around her, celebrated in portraiture, parades, and the literature of the day. Elizabeth's reign became known as the Elizabethan era. The period is famous for the flowering of Elizabethan theatre, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Francis Drake. Some historians describe Elizabeth as a hot-tempered ruler, sometimes indecisive that she enjoyed her lucky moment. Towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Elizabeth is recognized as a charismatic ruler and a dogged survivor in an era when government was as ramshackle as it was limited, and when monarchs from neighboring countries faced internal problems that put their thrones in jeopardy. After the brief reigns of his half-siblings, his 44 years on the throne provided notable stability to the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. His reign was the fifth longest in English history, behind the of Elizabeth II, Victoria, George III and Edward III.

Childhood and youth

Enrique VIII and Ana Bolena, parents of Isabel I.

Isabel was born in the Palace of Placentia on September 7, 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII of England and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She was named after her two grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard, on 10 September 1533 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, with the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk and the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset as her godparents. At the ceremony George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, John Hussey, Baron Hussey, Lord Thomas Howard and William Howard carried a canopy over the three-day-old girl.

Isabel Tudor as a princess, h. 1546, of unknown author.

Although Henry would have preferred a boy to ensure the succession to the House of Tudor, Elizabeth became heir presumptive to the throne of England, as her sister Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, had been declared illegitimate following the annulment of the her marriage to Enrique. However, it was for a short time. Isabel was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on May 19, 1536, four months after the death of Catherine of Aragon from natural causes. The fact that Ana had not given a male heir to the king made him lose interest in his wife, for which reason a process was orchestrated that allowed Enrique to have the queen executed on charges of treason (adultery against the king was considered treason) and witchcraft, for having had an incestuous relationship with her brother, charges that are now considered false. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession.

The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul, book of poems translated from French, written by Isabel, at eleven years, as a gift for Catalina Parr in 1544 (note the KP monogram; "Katherine Parr"). The embroidery of binding is also the work of Isabel.

When her mother died, she was left in the care of Lady Margaret Bryan until her brother was born, then raised by Katherine Ashley. Elizabeth was then three years old when she was declared an illegitimate child, for which she lost the title of princess to her. She lived withdrawn from the Court, far from her father and her successive wives, although the last of these, Catalina Parr, mediated for her father and daughter to reconcile. Isabel, thanks to the Third Act of Succession of 1543, recovered her rights in the succession line behind her brother Prince Eduardo (son of Juana Seymour) and her sister María Tudor (daughter of Catalina de Aragón), who was also restored in that same Act of Succession.

Among his assistants, during the time of exile, Katherine Champernowne and Matthew Parker stood out. The first was included among the members of Isabel's house, prior to the death of her mother and she maintained a friendship with the future queen that lasted until her subsequent death. Matthew Parker was Anne Boleyn's favorite priest, who made her promise, before her execution, that he would see to the well-being of her daughter.

In terms of her personality, Isabel had much in common with her mother: neurotic, charismatic, infatuated and fervently protestant. She also inherited her delicate bone structure, as well as her facial features; of the king, only her reddish hair.

After the death of Henry VIII in 1547 and the accession of his son, Edward VI, Catherine Parr remarried Thomas Seymour, Edward's uncle, taking Elizabeth with her. There, she received an exquisite education that gave her an excellent expression in her native English,^{[citation needed]} in French, Italian, Greek and Latin. Catherine's influence, Elizabeth was formed as a Protestant.

While her brother remained on the throne, Elizabeth's position was unstable. However, in 1553, Edward died at the young age of 15. Before her death, and in contravention of the Act of Succession issued by her father in 1544, Eduardo declared Lady Jane Gray heir, who would be deposed a few days after her proclamation, on July 19, 1553. Supported by the people, María returned triumphant to London accompanied by her half-sister.

Ignoring public opinion, María married Prince Felipe of Spain, the future King of Spain under the name of Felipe II. The unpopularity of this union provoked in María the fear of being overthrown by a popular rebellion that would name Isabel as the new monarch. This fear was almost realized when Thomas Wyatt's rebellion of 1554 tried to prevent her wedding. After her failure, Elizabeth was taken prisoner in the Tower of London, but her execution, requested by some members of the Spanish entourage, never materialized due to the resistance of the English court to sending a member of the Tudors to the gallows. The queen then tried to remove Elizabeth from her line of succession as punishment, but Parliament prevented her from doing so. After two months of confinement in the Tower, Elizabeth was placed under the surveillance of Sir Henry Bedingfield. At the end of that year, a false rumor spread that María was pregnant. Isabella was then allowed to return to court, since Felipe was somewhat suspicious that his wife might die during childbirth, in which case he preferred that the throne pass to the recluse. At the moment in which the fact of her was denied, María, unable to prevent Isabel from succeeding her, tried to convert her to Catholicism, which the latter pretended to accept despite the fact that inside her she remained faithful to the Protestant faith.

From October 1555, Elizabeth resided at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. In 1558, Felipe, who was already King of Spain, sent Gómez III Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba to meet with Isabel, in view of the progressive decline in María's health. By October, the young princess was already making plans for her government. On November 6, Mary recognized Elizabeth as her heir and on November 17 the queen passed away, leaving Elizabeth as the new Queen of England. According to tradition, Elizabeth received the news under an oak tree and in response, recited a verse from Psalm 118: A Domino factum est illud et est mirabile in oculis nostris (in English: This is the work of the Lord and it is wonderful in our eyes).

Accession

Isabel's portrait in her coronation.
Copy of an original, h. 1600.

At the age of 25, Elizabeth became queen and declared her intentions to her Privy Council and the other peers of the realm who had come to Hatfield to show their support. Her speech before them became the first testimony that has come down to our days on the medieval political theology of the "two bodies": the natural and the political:

My lords, the law of nature moves me to cry for my sister; the burden upon me amazes me, and yet, considering that I am a creature of God, commands me to obey His appointment, I will surrender, wishing from the bottom of my heart that I may have assistance from His grace to be minister of His heavenly will in this position now to me entrusted. And since I am nothing but a body considered naturally, although with His permission a political body to govern, so I wish that all of you... be my helpers, so that I with my government and you with your service can give a good account to Almighty God and leave some comfort to our posterity on Earth. I intend to direct all my actions with good advice and advice.

Upon her triumphant return to London on the eve of her coronation ceremony, she was warmly welcomed by the citizens and greeted with prayers and shows, with a strong Protestant flavor. Isabel's open and courteous responses were greeted with joy by the population, who were "wonderfully delighted" by her new queen.The next day, January 15, 1559, Elizabeth was crowned and anointed by Owen Oglethorpe, Catholic Bishop of Carlisle, in Westminster Abbey. She was then presented for the acceptance of the people, amid a deafening noise of organs, fifes, trumpets, drums, and bells. Although Elizabeth was greeted with joy and hope, the country was still in a state of anxiety over the perceived threat. of Catholics at home and abroad, as well as by the choice of whom he would marry.

First years in power

Isabel I receiving ambassadors (ing., Queen Elizabeth and the Ambassadors1560.

At the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth's foreign policy was characterized by her cautious relationship with the Spain of Philip II, who had offered to marry her in 1559, and her troubled relations with Scotland and eastern France. The latter with whom he was at war because his sister María had decided to support her husband Felipe in the almost continuous war in which Spain and France had been immersed since 1522.

The Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart (granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII), was married to Francis II of France. Although she resided in France, her mother, Marie de Guise, part of one of the most powerful and Catholic French noble houses, ruled her kingdom in her absence, defending the interests of Catholics in Scotland. Due to the war against France in which England was immersed, Francisco II supported the claims of her wife to the English throne, while her mother allowed the presence of French troops in Scottish bases.

Surrounded by the French threat, Elizabeth and Philip were forced to join forces despite their religious differences. On the one hand, and thanks to the mediation of Felipe, England joined the peace treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, in which Elizabeth formally renounced the last English place on the continent, Calais, captured the previous year by Francisco de Guise, brother of María de Guisa; for its part, France undertook to withdraw its support from Mary Stuart's claims to the English throne. During the celebrations that accompanied the signing of this peace treaty, Francis II died, prompting his wife, Mary, to return to Scotland in 1561.

In addition, in the same year (1559), Elizabeth supported the religious revolution of John Knox, a Scottish Protestant leader, who sought to eliminate Catholic influence in Scotland. Elizabeth sent an army to besiege Leith, where French troops were massing, and a navy to blockade the Firth of Forth, where the French were expected to land reinforcements to support the Scots. Although the siege of Leith was a terrible failure, the navy managed to prevent the French landing and facilitated the rebel victory, achieving, after the death of Mary of Guise in 1560, that representatives of Mary Stuart signed the Treaty of Edinburgh, which eliminated the influence French in Scotland, although Mary always refused to ratify that treaty.

Meanwhile, Catherine de' Medici, regent for Charles IX in France after Francis II's death, was unable to stop Francis de Guise from carrying out a massacre of Huguenots, sparking a religious war between the Guise Catholic house, directed by Francisco, and the Bourbon Protestant house, directed by the Prince of Condé, Luis Borbón. Elizabeth supported the Protestant cause, even buying the port of Le Havre from the latter, which she planned to exchange for Calais at the end of the war. However, after the truce between Protestants and Catholics in 1563, Elizabeth was unable to hold Le Havre and signed a peace with France in 1564.

After the victories in Scotland and the unfortunate intervention in France, the only common elements of the foreign policy of Elizabeth and Philip II disappeared, which resulted in a continuous decline in relations between the two countries, as well as in a rapprochement of England to France.

From the earliest years of her reign, Elizabeth placed her trust in Sir William Cecil(Lord Burghley from 1572), who was first Royal Secretary and then Royal Treasurer until his death in 1598, at which time the trust of the Queen passed to his son, Robert Cecil.

The Succession: Mary Stuart

Queen Mary I of Scotland.

Shortly after Elizabeth's accession to the throne, a debate began over who should be the Queen's husband, including Parliament's request that the Queen marry her. However, contracting marriage would have meant for Elizabeth to share power with the king consort, something that made her feel a certain revulsion, and which may partly explain her constant refusal to even talk about marriage. With no children to succeed her, Elizabeth had two logical heirs: Mary Stuart, granddaughter of Henry VIII's older sister, Margaret Tudor, and Catherine Grey, descendant of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary Tudor. Elizabeth resented both the former, because of her previous clashes with her Catholicism, and the latter, who had married without royal permission and whose sister Jane had "usurped" the English throne.

The problem of the succession worsened in 1562, the year in which Elizabeth suffered from chicken pox. Although she recovered, Parliament again insisted on the need for her to marry in order to obtain offspring, to which Elizabeth refused, dissolving Parliament until 1566. That year the queen needed Parliament's permission to raise more funds; This was granted to her on the condition that she marry, to which Isabel again refused. In 1568, Catherine Gray died leaving descendants who for various reasons were unfit for the throne; thus, Mary Stuart saw her position as natural heir to her kingdom further strengthened.

However, Mary had problems of her own in Scotland, where a rebellion sparked by her wedding to the murderer of her second husband (by whom she had conceived James VI) forced her to abdicate in this and flee to England. There she was very poorly received, and due both to the danger that she posed to Elizabeth as heir to the throne and to the discovery of some letters in which she allegedly instigated the murderers of her second husband to act on her, she was confined in the Sheffield Castle.

Support the Protestant cause

Coins with the effigy of Queen Elizabeth I, 1585.

In 1568, Elizabeth felt threatened by the harsh repression of the Duke of Alba in the Protestant revolts in Holland, as well as by the attack by Philip II against the ships of the privateers Francis Drake and John Hawkins. While her advisers, headed by Francis Walsingham, asked the queen to support the Protestant cause as she had done years before with the Prince of Condé, she was inclined to order the capture of the Indies fleet in 1569.

That same year (1569) two uprisings took place: the so-called Rebellion of the North, led by Catholic noblemen from that area, who hoped to have the support of Spain against Elizabeth, and Desmond's first rebellion against the English government in Ireland, led by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald. However, both the Duke of Alba and Felipe II were reluctant to intervene in England, given the complicated situation in the Netherlands. Deprived of her enemies' foreign support, Elizabeth was able to deal with the rebellions, although she was excommunicated by a papal bull of 1570, which exacerbated her problems with Catholics. A year later the Florentine banker Ridolfí planned to assassinate the queen and place Mary Stuart on the throne, with the support of Spain, to restore Catholicism. The plan was discovered by Cecil, and the conspirators were executed. Among them was the Duke of Norfolk, Elizabeth's cousin.

The hardening of her problems with the Catholics did not prevent Elizabeth from leaning towards an alliance with France as a counterbalance to Spain, despite the massacre of San Bartolomé in 1572. She even went so far as to negotiate her marriage with the future Henry III, and after his coronation, with his brother Francisco de Anjou, who died in 1584 before the union could take place.

Pressure on Elizabeth to support the Dutch Protestants increased, until in 1577 the royal council, including Cecil, unanimously approved the dispatch of an expeditionary force. The Queen conferred command of the said force on Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, but she changed her mind the following year, withdrawing her support because of her reluctance to enter into open conflict with Spain.

In 1579, relying on the bull of excommunication against Elizabeth, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald launched Desmond's second rebellion. He had the support of the Pope, who sent troops and money, and Philip II, who sent a small expeditionary force to Ireland, agreeing to be crowned instead of Elizabeth when the revolution triumphed. However, the queen's troops managed to progressively contain the rebellion, ending it in 1583.

The war with Spain

Portrait of Isabel I (anonymous author, 1589), commemorating the defeat of the Spanish navy (represented in the background). Watch the globe under the right hand of the queen, symbol of its world power.

Spain pressed English interests hard: support for the Irish rebels and the accession of Philip II to the throne of Portugal, and above all the desperate Protestant situation in Holland (with Antwerp about to fall) and France, where the The Catholic League and the Guise family had managed to impose their will on Henry III, they were serious threats to England. Fearing Dutch surrender and the coronation of a Spanish puppet in France, Elizabeth pledged in 1585 to support the Dutch rebels, sending the Earl of Leicester 5,000 men and 1,000 horses. As a guarantee of payment for her expenses, Elizabeth wanted the ports of Brielle and Flushing. However, she refused to be crowned Queen of the Netherlands, since that would have totally compromised her in the war, and her financial situation did not allow it. The Earl of Leicester was unable to win any significant military victory, and in fact all of his interventions ended in defeat. This, coupled with his acceptance against Elizabeth's express will of the title of Governor-General of Holland, caused him to be recalled to England in 1587.

Also, Elizabeth supported Francis Drake's privateering activity against the Spanish merchant marine, which led Philip II to consider the possibility of open war against England, as soon as there was a compelling reason for it.

A new Catholic conspiracy against Elizabeth gave Philip the excuse he was looking for. The wealthy London merchant Anthony Babington intended to assassinate the queen and crown Mary Stuart. The plot was discovered in the spring of 1586; It was revealed that María herself had participated in it, for which Parliament requested her execution. Elizabeth resisted as long as she could, but was ultimately unable to withstand her pressure, ordering the execution of Mary, who in her will ceded her rights to the English throne to Philip.

Philip began, therefore, to prepare the plan for the invasion of England, which was supported by the thirds of the Netherlands, while Elizabeth reinforced the navy of her kingdom. In 1587, Drake successfully attacked Cádiz, destroying several ships and effectively delaying the famous Spanish Armada until 1588. However, the Navy saw its purpose frustrated by English resistance, the Dutch blockade and bad weather.

Defeat of the invincible navy, painting by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg (1796).

Map of the counter-arm, which was left with a harsh English defeat.

The victory over the Armada filled Isabel with relief, and she would no longer have to fear an invasion by the Spanish tercios. But the atmosphere in England after the battle was far from being a merriment of patriotic fervor and celebration for the failure of the Spanish invasion. The battle was followed by all kinds of riots and political confrontations caused by the hardships suffered by the English fighters, who took months to collect their salaries because the war brought the English and Spanish crowns to the brink of bankruptcy. Even so, confident of victory, in 1589 the queen ordered an expedition against Lisbon, the Counterarmada (superior even to the Invincible Armada), with the aim of wiping out the remnants of the Spanish Atlantic fleet and inciting Portugal to an uprising. against Philip. However, this expedition ended in disaster, since it was unable to capture the Portuguese capital, losing a large number of soldiers, sailors and ships, and causing a great economic crisis. The advantage that England had gained over the destruction of the Spanish Armada was lost, and the Spanish victory marked a revival of Philip II's naval power for the next decade.

Their interventions were more successful in favor of the Dutch Protestants (8,000 soldiers) and in the French civil war, in favor of the also Protestant Henry IV of France (20,000 soldiers), since by supporting Henry, Elizabeth distracted the attention of Spain, allowing the Dutch rebels to recover when they already believed their defeat almost certain. Although the religious war favored the Catholic side, when Henry converted to Catholicism in 1593, Elizabeth maintained the alliance with France due to the need to continue the fight against Spain. Although she withdrew her troops from France in 1596, Elizabeth again sent 2,000 troops after the Spanish capture of Calais.

Isabel sent two fleets against Spain, one in 1596 that failed in its attempt to attack the American colonies (and caused the death of Francis Drake and John Hawkins), and another in 1597, which managed to sack Cádiz. Felipe, for his part, also sent two expeditions against England, the first of which managed to land in Cornwall and plunder the surrounding territories, a fact known as the Battle of Cornwall, but the second fleet was shipwrecked in Finisterre due to a storm.

While fighting against Spain, Elizabeth faced yet another rebellion in Ireland, the Irish Nine Years' War (1594-1603), where Red Hugh O'Donnell and Hugh O'Neill rose up against English colonization. The queen was forced to send 17,000 troops under Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in 1599 to stop the uprising, but it failed. Charles Blount, 8th Baron of Mountjoy, succeeded him successfully, causing Spain, paralyzed since the death of Philip II in 1598, to intervene in 1601 on behalf of the rebels with 3,500 soldiers who landed at Kinsale. Surrounded by the English, they were defeated along with their Irish allies at the Battle of Kinsale, which ended the Spanish intervention in Ireland. In 1603 the Irish rebellion ended with the Treaty of Mellifont.

All three attempts to establish permanent English settlements in the Americas failed during his reign. The voyages of Martin Frobisher, Humphrey Gilbert's expedition to St. John of Newfoundland in 1583, and the colony of Roanoke (1585-1590).

Death of the Queen

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Whitgift, on Isabel's deathbed. Vitral church of St. James, Grimsby.

Elizabeth's chief adviser, William Cecil, died on 5 August 1598. His role in royal politics would be continued by his son Robert, who soon became head of the Government. The latter's purpose was to prepare the way for a smooth succession. Since Elizabeth never wanted to name successors, Cecil was forced to proceed in secret, entering into negotiations with James VI of Scotland, who had strong, but unrecognized, claims to the crown. Cecil taught the impatient James to stay in the dark. succession ensuring the queen's approval, without openly asking for the throne. The advice worked. James's tone charmed Elizabeth, although according to historian J. E. Neale, Elizabeth never openly declared the succession to the Scotsman, she did make her wishes known by unequivocal veiled phrases.

The queen's health remained uneventful until the autumn of 1602, when a series of deaths within her group of friends plunged her into a severe depression. In February 1603, the death of the Countess of Nottingham, Catherine Howard, who was the niece of her cousin and Catherine's friend of hers, Lady Knollys, was a blow of particular importance. In March, the Queen is described as being in ailments and appearing depressed, She took up residence in one of her favorite palaces, Richmond, near the River Thames. She herself refused to be examined and treated by her doctors, in addition to refusing to stay in bed, remaining on her feet for several hours, in silence. As her condition deteriorated, her bridesmaids scattered cushions on the floor, and Isabel finally leaned back on them.

As she grew weaker, her servants insisted on making her more comfortable in her bed, while Elizabeth's advisors gathered around and soft music was played to soothe her. Elizabeth had not yet named a successor, and on her deathbed she signaled to Cecil to leave James on the throne. About two in the morning, the queen died on March 24, 1603, and she is said to have passed away "lightly like a lamb, easily as an apple ripe from the tree".

Isabel was buried without an autopsy, so her cause of death remains unknown. She is generally attributed to blood poisoning, possibly caused by white makeup, made from Venetian ceruse, a mixture of lead and vinegar, making it highly poisonous.

Within a few hours, Cecil and the council carried out their plans and named James the new King of England.

Funeral and burial

The funeral court of Isabel I, attributed to William Camden (1603).

Elizabeth's coffin was carried downriver at night to Whitehall in a torch-lit boat, then laid in state. At the funeral on April 28, the coffin was carried to Westminster Abbey in a four-horse carriage with black velvet padding. In the words of chronicler John Stow:

"Westminster was overloaded with a multitude of all kinds of people in their streets, houses, windows, tracks and channellings, who came to see the exequias, and when they saw his statue in the coffin, there was a general feeling of people sighing, groaning and crying as before it has not been seen or known in the memory of men."

She was buried in the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey, next to her sister Mary. The Latin inscription on her tombs reads: "Partners on throne and tomb, here rest Elizabeth and Mary, sisters, in the hope of resurrection" .

The conversion of England to Protestantism

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, known as Portrait of the Arcoíris, c. 1600, an allegorical representation of the queen.

Portrait of Isabel I, painted after 1620, during the first rebirth of interest in her reign. Time sleeps on its right and Death looks over the left shoulder; two Fuckti They hold the crown on their head.

One of the highlights of his reign was the transformation of England, a predominantly Catholic country, into a Protestant country. Elizabeth's sister Mary had restored Catholicism during her rule, to such an extent that the Queen found no important bishop to officiate at her coronation and she had to turn to the Bishop of Carlisle.

As early as 1559, Elizabeth, Supreme Governor of the Anglican Church, proclaimed the Act of Uniformity, which made it compulsory to use a revised version of the Devotional of Edward VI —a Protestant book— in services and to go to church every Sunday, and the Act of Supremacy that forced the employees of the crown to acknowledge by oath the subordination of the English Church to the monarchy. Most of the Catholic bishops established by Mary refused to accept these changes, being deposed and replaced by people favorable to the theses of the queen.

During her first years, Isabel tried a policy of tolerance towards Catholics; however, the rebellions of 1569 and 1571 and the papal bull of excommunication of 1570 led her to toughen her measures against Catholics. Between 1584 and 1585 a law was passed that sentenced to death those Catholic priests who had been ordained after the accession of the queen in 1559. Due in part to persecution, in part to the identification of Protestantism and patriotism during the war against Spain and with the aging (and subsequent demise) of Catholic priests, the country had effectively become Protestant by the time the queen died in 1603.

Representation in film and television

He is, along with Henry VIII, the only character with three performers to get an Oscar nomination.