More British History

[vipponah]

Very same query as before - only about QUEENS - who do you feel was the greatest British queen of all time and why?

[Stillmann]

I believe that Elizabeth I stands fairly alone as possibly the greatest English monarch period. It was Elizabeth who produced England in a lot of, a lot of techniques. She took over a kingdom that was fundamentally nevertheless a poor backwater nation that was nevertheless reeling from her quick predecessors and created it into a energy that had to be reckoned with. She did a lot of it by stealing from the Spanish but by hook or crook she did it. Before her England was a minor player in European affairs compared to Spain, Portugal and the Dutch but right after her England could by no means be ignored again. Sources: my opinion   KingofRandomCrap's Recommendations The Life of Elizabeth I Amazon List Value: $15.95 Used from: $3.14 Typical Client Rating: 4. out of 5(based on 120 critiques) KingofRandomCrap 75 months ago Please sign in to give a compliment. Please verify your account to give a compliment. Please sign in to send a message. Please confirm your account to send a message.

[Odwolfe]

Elizabeth I hands down. First, she was great due to the fact of her private qualities. She was really courageous, withstanding every thing from horrible(and I do imply horrible) teeth to preparing to lead her troops at Tillbury at the time of the Armada. She was intelligent, speaking Latin, Italian and French fluently as well as speaking Spanish and ancient Greek, even though not as fluently. She wrote lovely calligraphy and was an outstanding dancer, lutist and horsewoman. She had more stamina than most of the males at court. She was also a survivor, walking a perilous path amongst the intrigues at her father's court, then her brother's with the scandal of Seymour, followed by the crowning of Queen Jane and finally by means of the bitterness and ill will that her sister Mary bore her. But her reign was what made poets call her Gloriana. When she came to the throne, she inherited a bankrupt kingdom. Through thrift and hard options she balanced the budget(seems so quaint, does not it). She bolstered the wool and cloth trade and was responsible for policies that designed a thriving trade with the continent. By means of exceptionally fine diplomacy(which at instances involved convoluted marriage negotiations), she kept England out of war until 1588 when the nation was attacked by Spain. She kept the northern border with Scotland relatively quiet(I do not genuinely want to mention Ireland, even though she did not do also horribly there -- kept these wild chieftains type of contained). She stabilized the Church which had been thrown into chaos by the intense views of her predecessors. Throughout her reign, Shakespeare trod the boards, Ben Jonson walked the streets and Christopher Marlowe got himself murdered Drake circumnavigated the globe and Francis Bacon invented the scientific approach. I could go on and on, but there have been adequate biographies written about Elizabeth. Sources: My lifelong adore of Elizabethean history   constance2u's Recommendations Elizabeth I Amazon List Cost: $30.00 Utilized from: $.69 Typical Client Rating: four.five out of 5(primarily based on 15 testimonials) This is my favourite biography of Elizabeth. constance2u 75 months ago Please sign in to give a compliment. Please confirm your account to give a compliment. Please sign in to send a message. Please confirm your account to send a message.

[Rickie]

Elizabeth I, the final of the Tudors, was a exceptional lady by any standards.  Incredibly properly educated, politically astute, a canny judge of character and passionately loyal to her buddies, she is the apparent choice as England's greatest queen.   Prior to she came to the throne at the age of 25, she had lived by way of traumas which would have decreased a significantly less enduring character to crippling psychosis.  Just an infant when her larger-than-life father had her mother beheaded, she certainly bore an understandable aversion to marriage from a tender age.  She narrowly escaped getting swamped in the wake of Thomas Seymour's vainglorious plot to seize power, and spent years of Mary Tudor's reign in the Tower or under stringent home arrest as considerably for being the heiress presumptive to the throne as for her presumed Protestantism.  Really couple of young females could survive this sort of all-or-absolutely nothing testing.  Elizabeth not only survived, but managed to use her years of disfavor to size up and make cautious notes about what Queens need to and ought to not do.  Mary, married to the unpopular Spanish King Philip and addicted to the inquisitorial pasttime of burning heretics at the stake, was an superb example of the latter.   Possibly Elizabeth's most clever action, in a lifetime of clever actions, was choosing William Cecil to be her closest advisor.  Cecil's cautious nature and preference for creating England the fulcrum of European politics suited quite properly the inclinations of a young Queen whose personal experiences rewarded diplomacy and caution over direct action.   Her second appointment was the charming Robert Dudley, whom she had known in the Tower, as her Master of Horse(producing him the chief organizer of ceremonies and entertainments as effectively as the all-critical Royal Stables).   Even though Cecil's relationship with Elizabeth was always one of mutual respect and shared perform instincts, Dudley was the life-of-the-celebration courtier who came closer than anybody to in fact marrying Elizabeth the precise extent of their partnership is nevertheless and most likely usually will be hotly debated.  Nonetheless, it is accurate that these two males symbolized Elizabeth's genius for picking the correct man for the job and then keeping him in it each remained close advisors and friends of the Queen till their deaths.   Elizabeth also had a genius for avoiding showdowns.  Her relations with Parliament all through her reign were tough she depended on this body to grant the taxes needed to run her government and her court, and was not above employing tears, threats, pleas and scenes of high emotion to keep the money flowing while avoiding the marriage continuously becoming urged on her.  In retrospect, one must admire her capacity to carry negotiations and international flirtations to the brink of commitment even though managing to steer clear of the logical outcome.  Delaying choices, a trait which drove Parliaments and Councils to distraction, was Elizabeth's personal way of creating decisions without suffering all the unpleasantness of producing an unpopular selection.    In a time when continental Europe was engulfed in Inquisitions and wars more than religion, Elizabeth managed to maintain both her Protestant and her Catholic subjects loyal, even though neither was completely happy.  She distrusted fanatics of any stripe, and managed to steer the Church of England on a moderate course with no insisting on examinations which would make it impossible for her Catholic subjects to go about their enterprise and steer clear of unpleasant declarations.   She developed a court exactly where artistic achievement was praised and rewarded.  Her reign is synonymous with the high literary accomplishments of Shakespeare, Sidney, Marlowe and other giants whose functions nonetheless plague higher-college students all through the world.  If she was vain as a peacock, her vanity inspired lyric verse which is surely apologia adequate.   Elizabeth inherited a kingdom virtually bankrupt.  She displayed a life-lengthy genius for acquiring and hoarding treasures which we can only envy, particularly as we are not amongst her extended-suffering nobility required to hock all the family treasures to give suitable entertainment and rich gifts when receiving the Queen on 1 of her famous Progresses about the countryside.  She invested with the "English sea-dogs," including Francis Drake, and created a fortune from preying on the Spanish and Portuguese shipping in the New Planet and the Orient.  She desperately avoided foreign wars and entanglements, a certain way to dissipate her tough-won wealth, and normally underfunded these enterprises she reluctantly agreed to.   Elizabeth had her less appealing points, definitely.  She was ruthlessly unforgiving when courtiers took their romantic attentions off her banishment from court was the greatest they could hope, imprisonment was not out of the question, and while she ultimately relented and re-instated the man in query, she was not as forgiving to the woman in the case.  She put off unpleasant tasks and was swift to blame her advisors for something which did not go to her liking the long imprisonment and eventual beheading of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots was one such action, and although Elizabeth herself signed the warrant, she punished Cecil, Dudley and every single other member of her Council for carrying out an action so controversial.    Nonetheless, she managed to preserve England united and protected throughout a turbulent period in European history, she encouraged exploration and the arts, and she inspired the best efforts of those around her.  Not a poor legacy, that.

[Meldon]

How could it be any other?

[Hrycg]

I don't think any other queens of England even come close. Under Elizabeth's leadership, England defeated the Spanish Armada, establishing the superiority of British sea power. England made serious inroads in the area of exploration and began building her empire. Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, and the ill-fated Roanoke Colony was established in North Carolina--the first British Colony in what is now the United States. In addition, poetry and theatre flourished, with Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe and Ben Jonson producing some of the greatest literary works in the English language--even to this day. Before Elizabeth came to the throne, England was torn along religious lines. Henry VIII had broken with the Catholic Church over the marriage issue, and Elizabeth's sister Mary had attempted to re-ally England with the Church. Elizabeth was able to affect compromises, while retaining her Protestant orientation, so there was a period of relative peace amongst religious factions during her reign(even though Mary of Scots continued to be a thorn in her side). Elizabeth's relations with Parliament were also generally good. One of Elizabeth's talent was choosing excellent advisors, and men like Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Christopher Hatton and William Cecil, Lord Burghley contributed much to the success of her reign. However, Elizabeth herself was also a master of diplomacy. She was able to play the factions against each other and maintain peace, at the same time strengthening Britain's role in world affairs and facilitating a real golden age for English letters. This is only a brief list of Elizabeth's accomplishments. She was not only the greatest English queen, but many also feel she was the greatest British monarch, period.

[Eyton]

Elizabeth I, of course. How could it be any other? Seti1 75 months ago Please sign in to give a compliment. Please verify your account to give a compliment. Please sign in to send a message. Please verify your account to send a message.

[Eardly]

First, she was great because of her personal qualities. She was extremely courageous, withstanding everything from horrible(and I do mean horrible) teeth to preparing to lead her troops at Tillbury at the time of the Armada. She was intelligent, speaking Latin, Italian and French fluently as well as speaking Spanish and ancient Greek, although not as fluently. She wrote beautiful calligraphy and was an excellent dancer, lutist and horsewoman. She had more stamina than most of the men at court. She was also a survivor, walking a perilous path among the intrigues at her father's court, then her brother's with the scandal of Seymour, followed by the crowning of Queen Jane and finally through the bitterness and ill will that her sister Mary bore her. But her reign was what made poets call her Gloriana. When she came to the throne, she inherited a bankrupt kingdom. Through thrift and hard choices she balanced the budget(seems so quaint, doesn't it). She bolstered the wool and cloth trade and was responsible for policies that created a thriving trade with the continent. Through exceptionally fine diplomacy(which at times involved convoluted marriage negotiations), she kept England out of war until 1588 when the country was attacked by Spain. She kept the northern border with Scotland relatively quiet(I don't really want to mention Ireland, although she didn't do too horribly there -- kept those wild chieftains kind of contained). She stabilized the Church which had been thrown into chaos by the extreme views of her predecessors. During her reign, Shakespeare trod the boards, Ben Jonson walked the streets and Christopher Marlowe got himself murdered; Drake circumnavigated the globe and Francis Bacon invented the scientific method. I could go on and on, but there have been enough biographies written about Elizabeth.

[Alhhard]

That's easy--Elizabeth I I don't think any other queens of England even come close. Under Elizabeth's leadership, England defeated the Spanish Armada, establishing the superiority of British sea power. England made serious inroads in the area of exploration and began building her empire. Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, and the ill-fated Roanoke Colony was established in North Carolina--the first British Colony in what is now the United States. In addition, poetry and theatre flourished, with Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe and Ben Jonson producing some of the greatest literary works in the English language--even to this day. Before Elizabeth came to the throne, England was torn along religious lines. Henry VIII had broken with the Catholic Church over the marriage issue, and Elizabeth's sister Mary had attempted to re-ally England with the Church. Elizabeth was able to affect compromises, while retaining her Protestant orientation, so there was a period of relative peace amongst religious factions during her reign(even though Mary of Scots continued to be a thorn in her side). Elizabeth's relations with Parliament were also generally good. One of Elizabeth's talent was choosing excellent advisors, and men like Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Christopher Hatton and William Cecil, Lord Burghley contributed much to the success of her reign. However, Elizabeth herself was also a master of diplomacy. She was able to play the factions against each other and maintain peace, at the same time strengthening Britain's role in world affairs and facilitating a real golden age for English letters. This is only a brief list of Elizabeth's accomplishments. She was not only the greatest English queen, but many also feel she was the greatest British monarch, period. Sources: personal reading, and: http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon45.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England; http://www.nps.gov/archive/fora/eliztudor.htm   tabbycat's Recommendations The First Elizabeth Amazon List Price: $17.95 Used from: $3.00 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5(based on 20 reviews) Young Elizabeth: The First Twenty-Five Years Amazon List Price: $15.95 Used from: $2.50 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5(based on 3 reviews) Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544(The Royal Diaries) Amazon List Price: $10.95 Used from: $0.01 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5(based on 135 reviews) Elizabeth Regina Amazon List Price: $15.95 Used from: $1.49 tabbycat 75 months ago Please sign in to give a compliment. Please verify your account to give a compliment. Please sign in to send a message. Please verify your account to send a message.

[Fyrsil]

It was Elizabeth who made England in many, many ways. She took over a kingdom that was basically still a poor backwater nation that was still reeling from her immediate predecessors and made it into a power that had to be reckoned with. She did a lot of it by stealing from the Spanish but by hook or crook she did it. Before her England was a minor player in European affairs compared to Spain, Portugal and the Dutch but after her England could never be ignored again.