33 Facts About Queen Elizabeth I

1. Queen Elizabeth I was the first Tudor to recognise that a monarch ruled by popular consent.

2. In fact, Queen Elizabeth I believed that faith was personal and did not wish, as Francis Bacon put it, to "make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts".

3. Queen Elizabeth I established an English church that helped shape a national identity and remains in place today.

4. Queen Elizabeth I's offered very limited aid to foreign Protestants and failed to provide her commanders with the funds to make a difference abroad.

5. Queen Elizabeth I was praised as a heroine of the Protestant cause and the ruler of a golden age.

6. Queen Elizabeth I's repeatedly appointed him to military posts despite his growing record of irresponsibility.

7. Queen Elizabeth I's became fond and indulgent of the charming but petulant young Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who was Leicester's stepson and took liberties with her for which she forgave him.

8. Queen Elizabeth I's was portrayed as Belphoebe or Astraea, and after the Armada, as Gloriana, the eternally youthful Faerie Queene of Edmund Spenser's poem.

9. Queen Elizabeth I "agreed to sell munitions supplies to Morocco, and she and Mulai Ahmad al-Mansur talked on and off about mounting a joint operation against the Spanish".

10. Queen Elizabeth I's proposed an alliance, something which she had refused to do when offered one by Feodor's father, but was turned down.

11. Queen Elizabeth I continued to appeal to Feodor in half appealing, half reproachful letters.

12. Queen Elizabeth I continued to maintain the diplomatic relations with the Tsardom of Russia originally established by her half-brother.

13. Queen Elizabeth I was replaced by Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who took three years to defeat the rebels.

14. In spring 1599, Queen Elizabeth I sent Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, to put the revolt down.

15. Queen Elizabeth I advised her commanders that the Irish, "that rude and barbarous nation", be well treated; but she showed no remorse when force and bloodshed were deemed necessary.

16. Queen Elizabeth I's feared that the French planned to invade England and put her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne.

17. At first, only Queen Elizabeth I made a virtue of her virginity: in 1559, she told the Commons, "And, in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin".

18. Queen Elizabeth I seems to have taken the courtship seriously for a time, and wore a frog-shaped earring that Anjou had sent her.

19. Queen Elizabeth I's turned down Philip's own hand early in 1559 but for several years entertained the proposal of King Eric XIV of Sweden.

20. Queen Elizabeth I died shortly after the defeat of the Armada.

21. Queen Elizabeth I finally remarried in 1578, to which the queen reacted with repeated scenes of displeasure and lifelong hatred towards his wife, Lettice Knollys.

22. Queen Elizabeth I was extremely jealous of his affections, even when she no longer meant to marry him herself.

23. Queen Elizabeth I's considered several suitors until she was about fifty.

24. Queen Elizabeth I was fortunate that many bishoprics were vacant at the time, including the Archbishopric of Canterbury.

25. Queen Elizabeth I's was a Protestant, but kept Catholic symbols, and downplayed the role of sermons in defiance of a key Protestant belief.

26. Queen Elizabeth I's was then presented for the people's acceptance, amidst a deafening noise of organs, fifes, trumpets, drums, and bells.

27. Queen Elizabeth I's open and gracious responses endeared her to the spectators, who were "wonderfully ravished".

28. Queen Elizabeth I's was a better ally than the chief alternative, Mary, Queen of Scots, who had grown up in France and was betrothed to the Dauphin of France.

29. Queen Elizabeth I was placed in his household and carried the chrisom, or baptismal cloth, at his christening.

30. Queen Elizabeth I was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession.

31. Queen Elizabeth I was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the major powers of France and Spain.

32. Queen Elizabeth I's had earlier been responsible for the imprisonment and execution of James's mother, Mary, Queen of Scots.

33. Queen Elizabeth I's depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley.