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Monday, August 27, 2007

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 - 24 March 1603)

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England, Queen of France (in name only), and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. She is sometimes referred to as The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, and was immortalised by Edmund Spenser as the Faerie Queene. Elizabeth I was the fifth and final monarch of the Tudor dynasty (the other Tudor monarchs having been her grandfather Henry VII, her father Henry VIII, her half-brother Edward VI, and her half-sister Mary I, also known as Mary Tudor or Bloody Mary). She reigned for about 45 years, during a period marked by increases in English power and influence worldwide, as well as great religious turmoil within England.

Elizabeth's reign is referred to as the Elizabethan era or the Golden Age of Elizabeth. Playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson all flourished during this era; Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe; Francis Bacon laid out his philosophical and political views; and English colonisation of North America took place under Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Elizabeth was a decisive ruler. Her favourite motto was video et taceo ("I see and keep silent").[1] This last quality, viewed with impatience by her counsellors, often saved her from political and marital misalliances. Like her father Henry VIII, she was a writer and poet. She granted Royal Charters to several famous organisations, including Trinity College, Dublin (its official name is the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Elizabeth near Dublin) in 1592 and the British East India Company (1600).

In her nearly forty-five years as monarch, she created only nine peerage dignities, one earldom and seven baronies in the Peerage of England, and one barony in the Peerage of Ireland. She also reduced the number of Privy Counsellors from thirty-nine to nineteen, and later to fourteen.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, one of the 13 colonies that became the United States of America, was named for Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen", as was the Ulster Plantation town of Virginia, County Cavan, Ireland.

In 2002, she was ranked 7th in the 100 Greatest Britons poll.

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