Elizabeth (I)

Elizabeth I (1533–1603), also known as Elizabeth Tudor, was Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 until her death. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she succeeded her half-sister Mary I and established a long, stable reign later called the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth was highly educated and fluent in several languages, and her writings—speeches, letters, prayers, and occasional poems—are valued for their rhetorical skill and political insight. Notable texts include her Tilbury speech to troops in 1588 during the Spanish Armada crisis. She never married and was succeeded by James VI of Scotland (James I of England).