Her early life was full of uncertainties, and her chances of succeeding to the throne seemed very slight once her half-brother Edward was born in 1537. She was then third in line behind her Roman Catholic half-sister, Princess Mary. Roman Catholics, indeed, always considered her illegitimate and she only narrowly escaped execution in the wake of a failed rebellion against Queen Mary in 1554. Like her father, Henry VIII, with whom she identified publicly, she was a larger-than-life personality. As with King Hal, this makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction. This much is inarguable. Elizabeth was young when she took the throne: 25 years old. She was also good-looking- an advantage that she was not reluctant to exploit. In addition, the new queen was highly intelligent, witty, hardworking, and well educated. She was fluent in Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and, of course, English. She wrote poetry and could speak effectively when she chose to do so. Elizabeth was also, like her father, something of a scholar: she once translated Boethius' On the Consolations of Philosophy into English for her own amusement. She also took after her father in being both musical and athletic. She played the virginals (a primitive keyboard instrument), danced, and hunted with enthusiasm. A final, crucial similarity to Henry VIII was that Elizabeth I was vain and imperious. Men could flirt with her- indeed, she encouraged them- but they had to be careful not to go too far, for she never forgot that she was queen. That we might serve a higher purpose than ourselves is anathema to a modern society raised on neoliberal anti-values, where money and power are all that matters, and where society either doesn’t exist (Thatcher), or is an asset to be stripped. Liz Truss’s first act as prime minister has been to decide that the UK must take on yet more debt to manage the energy crisis – borrow from the future rather than tax the present-day profiteering of fossil fuel companies. What a depressing sight it was to see the Queen, whose first prime minister was Winston Churchill, greeting Truss, the PM no one voted for apart from 80,000 or so ageing Tories. A golden age? No, not for most people outside of the middle and noble classes and not for active traditional Catholic families in the North and East Midlands. Certainly not for the Irish. Remember and consider that this very day...eighty-two years sithence began a new resurrection of this kingdom from the dead, our second happy reformation of religion by the auspicious entrance of our late royal Deborah (worthy of eternal remembrance and honour) into her blessed and glorious reign.

Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87) was a thorn in Elizabeth’s side for much of her reign. Mary had been unpopular in Scotland because of her Catholic faith, and when she was suspected of having her husband killed and marrying his murderer, she was forced to flee to England in 1568. She hoped her cousin, Elizabeth, would help her to regain the throne of Scotland, but Elizabeth instead imprisoned her, perhaps wary of her appeal to Catholic subjects who wished to replace her with a Catholic monarch. Elizabeth entrusted her divisive and dangerous prisoner to the care of Talbot and Bess. Christopher Haigh, The Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth I—Myth or Reality? Awake! magazine, 2010, 1/10 pp. 19-22 Just looked at my notes and I talked about exploration being an achievement, and mentioned Drake’s raiding of Spanish treasure, which was obviously an achievement for him and Elizabeth, but I certainly wasn’t suggesting that piracy was good.On her throne, Elizabeth was the Virgin Queen; towards the Church she was a mother, with her nobles she was an aunt, to her councillors a nagging wife, and to her courtiers a seductress. Jae Jerkins, “Islam in the Early Modern Protestant Imagination: Religious and Political Rhetoric of English Protestant–Ottoman Relations”, (1528-1588), (Florida State University), Eras, Edn13, Issue 2, (June 2012), p. 15 Amyas, my most careful and faithful servant, God reward thee treblefold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged. The volatility forced on Britain since 2016 and Brexit has been contained – somewhat – in the person of the Queen. Surely, if she was still there, we were still there, a permanent presence on the world stage, part James Bond, part Paddington Bear, icons both, and how we fondly imagine ourselves – daring and successful, recognised and loved, eccentric, doing things our own way, world class, but sitting down with a sandwich and a pot of tea. In fact, Good Queen Bess is a full-fledged pop phenomenon. New romance novels and thrillers about Elizabeth or her archrival, Mary Queen of Scots, appear almost monthly. A recent book, Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I, posits that the Earl of Oxford was not only the author of Shakespeare’s plays but also Elizabeth’s secret love child. Several new biographies are due out this year, and films and plays about her reign are being revived. “Her life was a classic survival story,” says Sian Flynn, curator of the London exhibition. “She was nearly executed twice by her own siblings, and she succeeded as a woman in a man’s world.”

Lord Bolingbroke, The Idea of a Patriot King (1738), quoted in Lord Bolingbroke, Political Writings, ed. David Armitage (1997), p. 288 Mary was also a temptation for potential invaders such as Philip II. In a letter of 1586 to Mary, Elizabeth wrote, 'You have planned ... to take my life and ruin my kingdom ... I never proceeded so harshly against you.' Despite Elizabeth's reluctance to take drastic action, on the insistence of Parliament and her advisers, Mary was tried, found guilty and executed in 1587. The Queen always understood the power of radio – of voice – from when she made broadcasts during the war, but she began to understand the power of the image from the moment she agreed to the BBC televising her coronation in 1953. That alone marked her out as a new monarch for a new age. L]et me warn you that there is risen both in your realm and mine a sect of perilous consequence—such as would have no kings but a presbytery, and take our place while they enjoy our privilege with a shade of God's Word, which none is judged to follow right without by their censure they be so deemed. Yea, look we well unto them. When they have made in our people's hearts a doubt of our religion and that we err if they say so, what perilous issue this may make I rather think than mind to write. Sapienti pauca. I pray you stop the mouths or make shorter the tongues of such ministers as dare presume to make orison in their pulpits for the persecuted in England for the Gospel. Suppose you, my dear brother, that I can tolerate such scandals of my sincere government? No.Speech to Parliament (10 April 1593), quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (2002), p. 332