The Young Elizabeth

Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, inherited a nation close to collapse. The revolutionary nature of her father's reign, the Protestant years of her brother Edward, and the Roman Catholic years of her sister Mary, had destroyed the unity of the nation. Enemies waited on all sides to strike at the weakened island state. In Rome, the international papal alliance of nations and church leaders plotted to keep England in the Roman Catholic camp. Spain, led by the widower of Queen Mary, plotted to stop the creation of a Protestant England. Within England, dozens of nobles plotted to take power out of the hands of a young woman. English Protestants returning from a Dutch exile now plotted to force the new Queen to purify the nation and bring it back to Protestant orthodoxy. Any political observer would have predicted disaster for the youthful, untried woman who inherited the leadership of Europe's most troubled nation. During the next forty-five years, she proved them all wrong.

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A COPY OF THE ELIZABETH CHRONOLOGY.

It will print out to 6 pages. Eliz I Chron

 

SEE BELOW A LINK TO A WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ALL THE PORTRAITS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England

 

 

REQUIRED READING:

READING ELIZABETH'S WORKS
About the poems, choose among them, we will read some in class.
About the letters, also, read among them for your pleasure.
About the Speeches, here are the most useful for our study:
Speech 1, p. 51, First Speech
Speech 2, p. 53, Passage through London
Speech 3, p. 56, First Speech to Parliament
Speech 5, p. 70, Queens's answer to the Commons
Speech 6, p. 79, Answer to the Lord's Petition
Speech 10, p. 105, Speech Disolving Parliament
Speech 13, p. 167, At the Close of Parliament
Speech 16, p. 181, At Close of Parliamnet 1585
Speech 17, p. 186, About Execution of Mary quen of Scots
Speech 19, p. 325, The Armada Speech
Speech 21, p. 328, At Closing of Parliament, 1593
Speech 23, p. 335, The Golden Speech 1601
Speech 24, p. 346, Last Speech to Parliament, 1601.

LECTURE NOTES:

At the right you will find a link to the biographical notes for our three lectures on Elizabeth. You will want to print out the six pages.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Among the thousands of books available to us on Elizabeth I want to recommend two biographies of Elizabeth:.

1. The Neale biography of Elizabeth is the classic. Prof. Neale was Astor Professor of English History at the University of London for many years. His biography of Elizabeth was first published in 1934 and it is still in print and still praised as the first perfect one in English. All other biographers of Elizabeth acknowledge their debt to Neale.

2. For a newer biography of Elizabeth you may enjoy Anne Somerset, Elizabeth I.