So Ends Gloriana
Today marks the anniversary of
the death, in 1603, of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The last of the Tudor monarchs, it was under them,
and particularly under Elizabeth, that England moved from being a relative
backwater to a European power. Not bad
for a family whose claim upon the throne was at best tenuous; the great Tudor
historian G.R. Elton described that Tudors as being “a political solution to a
dynastic problem.”
This anniversary comes even as
England is in the process of translating the tomb of Richard III to Leicester Cathedral;
it was Richard III who, at the Battle of Bosworth field in 1485, was defeated
by Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII.
Elizabeth was succeeded by
James I (being already James VI of Scotland), the great-grandson of her aunt Elizabeth
Tudor who had in turn married James IV of Scotland.
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