The Accession of Elizabeth I

One of the greatest and most fascinating of English monarchs was proclaimed
queen on 17 November 1558.
Elizabeth Tudor, one of the greatest English monarchs, was the daughter of Henry
VIII and Anne Boleyn. Her elder half-sister Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon,
was brought up as a Catholic, Elizabeth as a Protestant. By the November of 1558,
when the last of close to 300 Protestants were burned alive as heretics, Queen
Mary I, after five years on the throne, was childless, prematurely old at forty-two
and seriously ill. She clearly had little time left and her husband, Philip II of Spain,
sent a message urging her to make sure that Elizabeth would succeed her (which
he believed would best suit Spain's interests). He also sent an envoy, who visited
the Lady Elizabeth. Now twenty-five, she was living at Hatfield Palace in
Hertfordshire and keeping quiet while important people deluged her with private
messages of support. When the Spanish envoy told her that it was his master who
would make her queen, she told him he was talking nonsense, and she would owe
the throne to the people of England. He went away discomforted.
Mary accepted that Elizabeth must succeed her. She died at St James's Palace in
London at six in the grey morning of the November 17th. Parliament was
assembled by eight o'clock and the Commons joined the Lords to agree that the
Lady Elizabeth must be proclaimed Mary's successor immediately. The Lady
Elizabeth's closest adviser, Sir William Cecil, just fortunately happened to have a
copy of the correct wording on him and the new queen was duly proclaimed. One
of her first actions was to make Cecil her principal minister, which he would be for
the next forty years.
On the 23rd, Elizabeth moved from Hatfield to London, which was seething with
excitement. She stayed for five days at the Charterhouse, the former monastery.
The new queen was a master of public relations, and she endeared herself to her
people with spectacular processions and brilliantly orchestrated events.
Splendidly dressed in purple velvet, she rode in procession on the 28th through
crowded streets from the Charterhouse to the Tower of London. She had once
been a prisoner there, but now children recited speeches to her at points along the
route and there was much joyful music and firing off of guns. Mary's embalmed
body, costumed as a nun at her own command, was buried in Westminster Abbey
on December 14th.
Elizabeth moved to Whitehall Palace on the 23rd and back to the Tower by water on
January 12th in a display which an Italian onlooker compared favourably to the
annual occasion in Venice when the city wed the sea. The climax of showmanship
came with her procession from the Tower to Westminster on the 14th, escorted by
a thousand riders on horseback through occasional snow flurries. Magnificently
robed in cloth of gold, she was carried slowly along in an open litter, so that the
cheering crowds could see her. Two mules in gold brocade bore the litter and, in
the procession, marched the gentlemen pensioners in crimson damask carrying
gilt battle-axes and an army of footmen in crimson jerkins adorned with a white
and a red rose and the letters E.R. The streets themselves were lined with wooden
rails draped in tapestries and silks and the city companies turned out in their
liveries to applaud the new queen on her way. At intervals along the route through
the city there were pageants and music, and recitations by children. Thousands of
people had waited patiently for hours behind the barriers to see the show and
banners saluted Elizabeth from windows along the way. The procession took the
entire afternoon as she stopped the litter frequently for people in the crowd who
wanted to speak to her or give her nosegays. She was crowned in Westminster
Abbey the next day and when she was formally presented to her people there was
such a huge shout and noise of trumpets, fifes, drums and ringing of bells that an
observer said it was as if the world had come to an end. The ceremony was
followed by the customary feast in Westminster Hall, where the monarch, in full
majesty with her sceptre and orb smiled rapturously on all beholders. Elizabeth
had already begun to make herself the sun around which her country revolved.
Even the grumpy Spanish envoy admitted that she 'gives her orders and has her
way as absolutely as her father did'. It was under her that England would emerge as
a world power.

Biography of Mary Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots is perhaps the best-known figure in Scotland’s history.
Her life provided tragedy and romance, more dramatic than any legend.
She was born in 1542 a week before her father, King James V of Scotland, died
prematurely.
It was initially arranged for Mary to marry the English King Henry VIII’s son Prince
Edward; however, the Scots refused to ratify the agreement. None too pleased by
this, Henry sought to change their mind through a show of force, a war between
Scotland and England… the so called ‘Rough Wooing’. In the middle of this, Mary
was sent to France in 1548 to be the bride of the Dauphin, the young French prince,
in order to secure a Catholic alliance against Protestant England. In 1561, after the
Dauphin, still in his teens, died, Mary reluctantly returned to Scotland, a young and
beautiful widow.
Scotland at this time was in the throes of the Reformation and a widening
Protestant – Catholic split. A Protestant husband for Mary seemed the best chance
for stability. Mary fell passionately in love with Henry, Lord Darnley, but it was not a
success. Darnley was a weak man and soon became a drunkard as Mary ruled
entirely alone and gave him no real authority in the country.
Darnley became jealous of Mary’s secretary and favourite, David Riccio. He,
together with others, murdered Riccio in front of Mary in Holyrood House. She was
six months pregnant at the time.
Her son, the future King James VI of Scotland and I of England, was baptised in the
Catholic faith in Stirling Castle. This caused alarm amongst the Protestants.
Lord Darnley, Mary’s husband, later died in mysterious circumstances
in Edinburgh, when the house he was lodging in was blown up one night in
February 1567. His body was found in the garden of the house after the explosion,
but he had been strangled!
Mary had now become attracted to James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and rumours
abounded at Court that she was pregnant by him. Bothwell was accused of
Darnley’s murder but was found not guilty. Shortly after he was acquitted, Mary
and Bothwell were married. The Lords of Congregation did not approve of Mary’s
liaison with Bothwell, and she was imprisoned in Leven Castle where she gave
birth to still-born twins.
Bothwell meanwhile had bid Mary goodbye and fled to Dunbar. She never saw him
again. He died in Denmark, insane, in 1578.
In May 1568 Mary escaped from Leven Castle. She gathered together a small army
but was defeated at Langside by the Protestant faction. Mary then fled to England.
In England she became a political pawn in the hands of Queen Elizabeth I and was
imprisoned for 19 years in various castles in England. Mary was found to be
plotting against Elizabeth; letters in code, from her to others, were found and she
was deemed guilty of treason.
She was taken to Fotheringhay Castle and executed in 1587. It is said that after her
execution, when the executioner raised the head for the crowd to see, it fell, and he
was left holding only Mary’s wig. Mary was initially buried at nearby Peterborough
Cathedral.
Mary’s son became James I of England and VI of Scotland after Elizabeth’s death in
1603. Although James would have had no personal memories of his mother, in
1612 he had Mary’s body exhumed from Peterborough and reburied in a place of
honour at Westminster Abbey. At the same time, he rehoused Queen Elizabeth to a
rather less prominent tomb nearby.

The Spanish Armada

The Spanish Armada set sail from Spain in July 1588, with the mission of
overthrowing the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I and restoring Catholic rule over
England.
Many years previously in the early 1530s, under instruction from Elizabeth’s
father King Henry VIII, the Protestant Church of England had broken away from the
Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. After Henry died however, his eldest
daughter Mary eventually succeeded him and in attempting to restore Catholicism
to the country married King Philip II of Spain.
Philip’s marriage to Mary, daughter of Henry’s first wife Catharine of Aragon, was as
far as he was concerned, fuelled by a religious zeal to father an heir that would
eventually return England to the Catholic fold. The English Parliament had only
countenanced their marriage on the basis that Philip was to be Mary’s consort,
and he was expressly forbidden from ruling the country and from becoming its
king.
When Mary died childless in 1558, her very Protestant half-sister Elizabeth,
daughter of Henry’s second wife Anne Boleyn, came to the throne. Philip’s
precarious grasp on England appears to have loosened, until that is he had the
bright idea of proposing marriage to Elizabeth as well.
Elizabeth then appears to have adopted some very clever delaying tactics …” Will I,
or won’t I?” And whilst all this procrastination was going on one side of the Atlantic,
English ships captained by ‘pirates’ such as Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins were
mercilessly plundering Spanish ships and territories in the Americas. To the
English, Drake and his fellow ‘seadogs’ were heroes, but to the Spanish they were
no more than privateers who went about their business of raiding and robbing with
the full knowledge and approval of their queen.
Events finally came to a head between Elizabeth and Philip in the 1560s when
Elizabeth openly supported Protestants in the Netherlands who were revolting
against Spanish occupation. Holland wanted its independence from the occupying
Spanish forces that had been using their religious secret police called the
Inquisition to hunt out Protestants.
It is thought that Philip made his decision to invade England as early as 1584 and
almost immediately started the construction of a massive armada of ships that
could carry an army capable of conquering his Protestant enemy. He gained Papal
support for his venture and even identified his daughter Isabella as the next Queen
of England.
The preparation required for such a venture was huge. Cannons, guns, powder,
swords and a whole host of other essential supplies were needed, and the Spanish
purchased these weapons of war on the open market from anybody that would sell
them. With all this activity going on, it was very difficult for the Spanish to keep the
Armada a secret, and indeed it may have been their intention to use some early
‘shock and awe’ tactics in order to worry their enemy.
Their tactics appear to have worked as in a bold pre-emptive strike, said to be
against Elizabeth’s wishes, Sir Francis Drake decided to take matters into his own
hands and sailed a small English fleet into the port of Cadiz, destroying and
damaging several Spanish ships that were being built there. In addition, but just as
significant, a huge stock of barrels was burned. These were intended to transport
stores for the invading forces and their loss would affect essential food and water
supplies.
Mainland England was also being prepared for the arrival of the invading forces
with a system of signal beacons that had been erected along the English and
Welsh coasts in order to warn London that the Armada was approaching.
Elizabeth had also appointed Lord Howard of Effingham to command the English
fleet, a leader considered strong enough to keep Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher
under control.
After one false start in April, when the Armada had to return to port after being
damaged by storms before they had even left their own waters, the Spanish fleet
finally set sail in July 1588. Almost 130 ships had gathered with approximately
30,000 men on board. For moral and obviously spiritual support, their precious
cargo also included 180 priests and some 14,000 barrels of wine.
Sailing in their classic crescent formation, with the larger and slower fighting
galleons in the middle protected by the smaller more manoeuvrable vessels
surrounding them, the Armada moved up through the Bay of Biscay.
Although the Armada had indeed set off, it was not initially bound for England. The
plan devised by King Philip was for the fleet to pick up extra Spanish soldiers re-
deployed from the Netherlands prior to invading England’s south coast. Following
the recent death of Spain’s famous admiral Santa Cruz, however, Philip had
somehow made the strange decision to appoint the Duke of Medina Sidonia to
command the Armada. An odd decision in that whilst he was considered a good
and very competent general, Medina Sidonia had no experience at sea and
apparently soon developed seasickness after leaving port.
On 19th July, word came that the Armada had been sighted and so an English force
led by Sir Francis Drake left Plymouth to meet it. It is said that when Drake was told
of its approach, he simply replied that he had plenty of time to finish his game of
bowls before defeating the Spanish.
When Drake eventually did get his ships into the Channel, however, there was little
he could do to inflict much damage against the solid well-built hulls of the Spanish
ships. The crescent shaped sailing formation they adopted also proved very
effective, ensuring that all Drake could achieve was to waste a lot of ammunition
firing at the Armada.
After five days of constant cannon exchanges with Drake’s ships, the Spanish were
now running desperately short of ammunition. In addition, Medina Sidonia had the
extra complication that he also needed to pick up the extra troops he needed for
the invasion from somewhere on the mainland. On 27th July the Spanish decided
to anchor just off Gravelines, near modern day Calais, to wait for their troops to
arrive.
The English were quick to exploit this vulnerable situation. Just after midnight eight
“Hell Burners”, old ships loaded with anything that would burn, were set adrift into
the resting and closely packed Armada. With ships made of wood sporting canvas
sails and loaded with gunpowder, the Spanish couldn’t help but recognise the
devastation these fire-ships could cause. Amidst much confusion, many cut their
anchor cables and sailed out to sea.
But as they broke into the dark of the Channel, their crescent shaped defensive
formation had disappeared, and the Armada was now vulnerable to attack. The
English did attack but they were bravely fought off by four Spanish galleons that
were attempting to protect the rest of the fleeing Armada. Outnumbered ten to
one, three of the galleons ultimately perished with significant loss of life.
The English fleet, however, had assumed a position that blocked off any chance
that the Armada could retreat back down the English Channel. And so, after the
Spanish fleet had reassembled, it could only head in one direction, northwards to
Scotland. From here, sailing past the west coast of Ireland they could perhaps
make it home to Spain.
Attempting to sail northwards and away from trouble, the more agile English ships
caused considerable damage to the retreating Armada.
With insufficient supplies, together with the onset of the harsh autumnal British
weather, the omens were not good for the Spanish. Fresh water and food quickly
disappeared and as the Armada rounded the north of Scotland in mid-September,
it sailed into one of the worst storms to hit that coast in years. Without anchor
cables the Spanish ships were unable to take shelter from the storms and as a
consequence many were dashed on to the rocks with great loss of life.
The ships that survived the storm headed for what should have been a friendly
Catholic Ireland in order to re-supply for their journey home to Spain. Taking
shelter in what is now called Armada Bay, just south of Galway, the starving
Spanish sailors went ashore to experience that famous Irish hospitality.
Immigration control was apparently short and swift, with all who went ashore
attacked and killed.
When the tattered Armada eventually returned to Spain, it had lost half its ships
and three-quarters of its men, over 20,000 Spanish sailors and soldiers had been
killed. On the other side, the English lost no ships and only 100 men in battle. A
grim statistic of the time, however, records that over 7,000 English sailors died
from diseases such as dysentery and typhus. They had hardly left the comfort of
English waters.
And for those English sailors who did survive, they were poorly treated by the
government of the day. Many were given only enough money for their journey
home, with some receiving only part of the pay due to them. The commander of the
English fleet Lord Howard of Effingham was shocked by their treatment claiming
that “I would rather have never a penny in the world, than they (his sailors) should
lack…”. He apparently used his own money to pay his men.
The victory over the Armada was greeted throughout England as divine approval for
the Protestant cause and the storms that ravaged the Armada as divine
intervention by God. Church services were held through the length and breadth of
the country to give thanks for this famous victory and a commemorative medal
was struck, which read, “God blew, and they were scattered”.