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Elizabeth (1533-1603) was Queen of England from 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last ruler of England's House of Tudor, the second daughter of Henry VIII. She ascended to the throne in 1558 upon the death of her sister, Mary. A Protestant, she made Anglicanism the official state religion of England, as it had been under her father and younger brother, Edward VI; Catholicism had been the state religion under Mary. Elizabeth also persecuted Catholics in much the same way her sister persecuted Protestants. For these reasons, she was excommunicated by Pope Pius V in 1570.
In 1585, she involved England in a proxy war against Spain by supporting the Netherlands in their rebellion against Spanish colonialism. The war with Spain would drag on for the rest of her reign and beyond, and would include Spanish support for Irish resistance to English colonialism; but the moment of maximum danger passed when the Royal Navy defeated the Spanish Armada in the English Channel in the summer of 1588.
Elizabeth died in 1603 without having produced an heir. The Tudor dynasty, which had produced produced six monarchs over 118 years, died with her, and the Stuart dynasty began when James VI of Scotland, the great-grandson of Elizabeth's aunt (and son of Mary Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth had ordered beheaded in 1587) inherited the throne.
Elizabeth I in 1632[]
Although Elizabeth I had been dead for nearly thirty years before the Thirty Years' War, her reign was still remembered. The citizens of Grantville, transferred back to the year 1631, were fairly conversant with her reign and its culture.
During her reign, Elizabeth had turned a blind eye to enforcing England's anti-Jewish position, and Jews returned in large numbers, particularly the Sephardic Jews who'd fled Spain. Aaron Abrabanel had entered employ of the government as a spy, a position which was taken up by his sons, Balthazar and Uriel.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth's successor, James I, reversed these positions.
See Also[]
- Elizabeth I at the Harry Turtledove Wiki
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| Preceded by Mary I of England |
Queen of England 1558-1603 |
Succeeded by James I of England |