20 pages • 40 minutes read
Elizabeth ISpeech to the Troops at Tilbury
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1588A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key FiguresCharacter Analysis
Queen Elizabeth l
Princess Elizabeth Tudor was born in 1533 to King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Although Elizabeth was the only child of Henry and Anne’s marriage, it was not certain she would inherit the throne. She had a half-sister, Mary, from her father’s previous marriage and would gain a half-brother, Edward, from his next. She also had a female cousin (also named Mary) poised to inherit the throne of Scotland, although many people argued any woman would make a poor ruler at a tumultuous time in England’s history.
Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1558 and ruled until her death in 1603. Under her rule, England grew in political, economic, and cultural power; William Shakespeare produced some of his best-known plays during Elizabeth’s reign, including Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, and Hamlet. Though she faced considerable pressure to marry and have an heir, Elizabeth resisted these calls, fearing that doing so would mean ceding power to a husband. Consequently, her reign was both the capstone and end of the Tudor dynasty; her successor would be the son of her cousin Mary Stuart, James VI of Scotland (afterward James I of England).
Anne Boleyn
Elizabeth’s mother was Anne Boleyn, a courtier’s daughter whom Henry VIII fell in love with while she was serving as a lady-in-waiting to his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry left the Catholic Church so that he could divorce his first wife and marry Anne, who was queen of England for three years. After Henry grew tired of waiting for a male heir, he had Anne arrested for treason and beheaded so he could remarry; Elizabeth was three years old at the time.
Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart)
Mary Stuart (or Mary, Queen of Scots) was Elizabeth’s first cousin and the heir to the Scottish throne. She married the king of France but was widowed at a young age, returning to Scotland amid the Scottish Reformation. She remarried twice and had one child, but due to political turmoil she was ultimately forced to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son.
Elizabeth sympathized with Mary as a fellow woman regent, but political threats forced her to imprison Mary for 18 years so she would not threaten Elizabeth’s own rule. Eventually, advisors coerced Elizabeth to find Mary guilty of treason, and Mary was beheaded by Elizabeth’s reluctant decree.
King Henry VIII
Elizabeth’s father, King Henry VIII, ruled England from 1509 to 1547. He married six times, although the Pope’s refusal to annul his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) cast doubt on the legality of several of these unions. This conflict with the Catholic Church led to the English Reformation when Henry established the Protestant Church of England so he could wed Anne Boleyn.
