Sanford Chiu

Elizabeth 1: How successfully did she deal with the problems of her reign?
Elizabeth was Queen of England from 1558-1603, this reign was also known as the golden age. During this time Elizabeth had to deal with many problems. Queen Elizabeth the 1 was also known as the Virgin Queen. When she became queen, she faced many problems because of her young age, had no

practical practice on how to be a great ruler, because she was the least likely person for being a ruler. Her gender was also a concern, as successful rulers used to be all men. When Elizabeth became queen there were many problems that faced her to be a good ruler. These problems were religious issues, her age, marriage, gender, Mary and the Spanish Armada. She faced these problems because Catholics werent very happy with their current ruler, and her first cousin, Mary Stewart (also known as Mary Queen of Scots) wanted to take over her throne when she was dead, the Spanish armada was sent because of Mary Stewarts Death. People were very worried because Elizabeth didnt marry yet and she was getting old, so that was another big problem for the female queen. She overcame all of these by not panicking and thinking she mostly told her top governors to do this, and not herself. The most Important and will be remembered by everyone is beheading Mary and Defeating the Spanish armada which most people thought was impossible, Elizabeth defeated the armada because she broke their crescent formation by sending a flaming ship towards them making them panic. Portraits are very important due to her image in her country, if people thought she was ugly they would make her fall and crumbled down as queen, so her portraits mainly made her beautiful and made her look very rich and powerful. This helped her a lot because people would think that she was rich and powerful, and not protest for her to give up her place as queen. This also made her maintain a powerful. For Elizabeth this marriage problem was the biggest problem so far that faced Elizabeth, She received offers of marriage from the King of Spain (King Philip), Prince Eric of Sweden, The Archduke Charles, the son of John Frederic Duke of Saxony, The Earl of Arran, the Earl of Arundel, and Sir William Pickering, who was so confident that he would be selected, that he demanded certain privileges be granted him while he stayed at the Court. Elizabeth politely rejected the offer made by King Philip, but allowed the other suitors to remain hopeful, while allowing her advisors to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each match. Yet, the only person, it seemed, who did not see the urgency for marriage, was Elizabeth herself. It will never be revealed if Elizabeth really intended to marry or not. Certainly she showed no great

enthusiasm for marriage, and said on a number of occasions that she personally preferred the single life. This problem actually helped Elizabeth in a good way, if she asked the suitors for items they would most certainly give it to her as they wanted to marry her.

Religion was a major issue for Elizabeth because she was a protestant and her father was a also protestant but her sister Mary Tudor was a catholic so she had to deal with many people that were catholic, and she built a church for both Catholics and Protestants. She nearly got killed during the process, people who tried to kill her provided some information, she pieced it together like a puzzle. She was successful because she managed to hold the country together and not lead the country into any trouble. Mary Stewart was Queen Elizabeths main problem and rival, Mary was executed because of the Babington plot in 1586 which was lead into by the Ridolfi Plot which caused Marys suitor the Duke of Norfolk, to lose his head, Elizabeth's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham and the royal council keenly assembled a case against her, this wasnt the only plot he uncovered for Elizabeth. At first, Elizabeth resisted calls for Mary's death. By late 1586 she had been persuaded to sanction her trial and execution on the evidence of letters written during the Babington Plot. On 8 February 1587, Mary was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire. The Spanish Armada was one of the most famous events in history, this happened on a 1585 morning when King Philip 2 sent a vast majority of ships to invade England, at that time Philip ruled a vast majority of land, and was very rich, Elizabeth had gone through many troubles to overcome this great problem. This attack was mainly because of religious problems as Elizabeth was protestant and Philip was catholic so Philip wanted to make England a catholic country again. Spain was rumored to have planned this attack for 30 years as there were always people muttering about it. When Elizabeth knew she was prepared for the attack as she had over 50 cannons, she also broke the Spanish crescent shape formation by sending a fleet of burning ships towards it. Spanish was in an embarrassing disaster as the world greatest super power was defeated by such a puny country. In Conclusion I think that queen Elizabeth was a successful ruler, because she kept her people safe and didnt kill innocent people, she also brought peace to England and became very powerful even at the end of her reign.