The Queens of England (1)

Mary I
Mary I, called Mary Tudor (1516-1558), Queen of England ( 1553 -1558). Mary was born in London on February 18, 1516, the daughter of Henry VIII by his first wife , Catherine of Aragón. Because Henry divorced Catherine, Mary was declared illegitimate. Nonetheless, Henry included her in his will, and on the death of her half - brother , Edward VI, on July 6, 1553, she became the legal heir to the throne. Although Lord High Chamberlain John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, favoured the succession of his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey , and proclaimed her queen on July 10, the country supported Mary.
As a Roman Catholic , Mary began her reign by sweeping away the religious innovations of her father and her brother. Henry VIII had separated England from the Church in Rome; Edward VI had replaced Roman Catholicism with a Protestant settlement. Mary restored the Mass and re- established the authority of the papacy, but, although she handed back Crown property to the Church, Parliament refused to restore Church lands seized by Henry VIII. Even with the help of Mary’s cousin, Cardinal Reginald Pole, a return to the state of affairs that existed before the Dissolution of the Monasteries was impossible: there were too many legal and financial intricacies.
Even more disastrous was Mary’s marriage in 1554 to Philip II, King of Spain, which was conducted at Winchester Cathedral rather than in London, owing to Philip’s unpopularity. Although Philip was never crowned in England, important documents bore his signature and were issued in the name of the “King and Queen”. There was opposition to his involvement in English affairs. One expression of this was the serious rebellion under the leadership of Sir Thomas Wyatt (the Younger) to depose Mary and put her half- sister , Elizabeth , later Elizabeth I, on the throne.
Philip was an uncompromising Roman Catholic and unpopular in England. At his order , Mary joined in a war against France, with the result that Calais, the last relic of the English conquests won during the Hundred Years ’ War with France, was lost in 1558. Its loss upset her deeply: “When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my heart ”, she is reported to have said.
Mary is characterized as “Bloody Mary” because of the large number of religious persecutions that took place during her reign; almost 300 people were condemned to death as a result of trials for heresy. These actions , however , must be put into perspective, as by European standards this was a limited persecution. It is possible too that Protestant writers such as John Foxe, particularly in his Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Dayes ..., popularly known as The Book of Martyrs, exaggerated the ferocity of the Catholic reaction. Some of Henry VIII’s and Edward VI’s most important Protestant bishops were burnt, including Thomas Cranmer, John Hooper, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley. Mary has been blamed for these persecutions along with her advisers: Reginald Pole, Bishop Stephen Gardiner (who had presided over the wedding of Mary and Philip), and Bishop Edmund Bonner.
Personally, Mary suffered from depression, anxiety , and neuralgia . Her phantom pregnancies were very probably the result of severe stress , and perhaps the extension of a character that was pious, conventional, and introspective. Her reign, too, was a difficult one. War in Europe , failure to reform the English Church, famine , and epidemics obscure some of the more positive aspects of Marian government such as the reform of the currency , the navy, and customs.
Mary died in London on November 17, 1558, and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth.
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (1533- 1603 ), Queen of England and Ireland (1558-1603), and the last ruler of the Tudor dynasty. She succeeded her sister, Mary Tudor, on November 17, 1558. Elizabeth chose not to marry , and declined to settle the succession. Her reign was punctuated by clashes with Parliament over the succession, and her reluctance to deal with Mary, Queen of Scots. Within two decades of Elizabeth’s death, the Elizabethan period had come to be known as a “ golden age”, a period of great literary achievements, the age of William Shakespeare , Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser, but, at the time, the regime often felt beleaguered at home and abroad . Internally, Elizabethan England was marked by religious divisions, as “ official ” Protestantism was consolidated in the local communities, and there was intense commercial rivalry and expansion abroad. The Religious Settlement of 1559 was the defining moment of the English Reformation, while the late 1580s and the 1590s were dominated by war with Spain and the French Catholic League , and by rebellion in Ireland. The iconography associated with the Queen herself, however, as Gloriana and the Virgin Queen, together with the length of her reign, has made her one of the most dominant characters of British history, a source of fascination to historians and the general public alike.
Victoria
Victoria (queen) (1819-1901), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ( 1837 -1901) and Empress of India (1876-1901). Born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in Kensington Palace , London, Victoria was the daughter of Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III. She ascended the throne on June 20, 1837, on the death of her uncle , William IV, who had no legitimate children . At this stage she was an unknown figure , even by name, to most of her subjects . When she died on January 22, 1901, outliving the century , she was one of the best -known figures , by reputation as well as name, not only in the United Kingdom but also in a greatly expanded British Empire and in the world, including the United States . Her reign had been the longest in British history, and she had given her name to an age—the age of Victorian Britain.
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II, full name Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (1926- ), Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1952- ), daughter of King George VI and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, born in London. In 1944 she served as a councillor of state while her father was on the war front in Italy . She married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , in 1947, and a year later gave birth to a son, Charles. In 1950 she gave birth to a daughter, Anne. Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on the death of her father in February 1952. A second son, Andrew , was born to Elizabeth in 1960 and a third, Edward, in 1964.
Elizabeth’s reign has been marked by vast changes in the lives of her people and in the power and prestige of her country. The primary role of Elizabeth throughout this period was that of a symbol of unity and continuity within the Commonwealth of Nations, the member countries of which she frequently visited along with her husband . In 1992 a series of disasters struck the royal family, with a damaging fire in the state apartments at Windsor Castle, and the announcement of the formal separation of Prince Charles from his wife Diana , Princess of Wales, and of Prince Andrew from his wife, Sarah . In the same year, Elizabeth made private enquiries about the possibility of paying a voluntary tax on her personal income, and in February 1993 the government duly announced that she would be subject to normal tax rules .
In December 1995 Elizabeth wrote to Prince Charles and Princess Diana urging them to divorce , following the Princess’s public statements about their marriage, which led to formal divorce proceedings being instituted. The couple were formally divorced on August 28, 1996. Following the death of Diana from injuries received in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, Elizabeth came in for some public criticism for the apparent coolness of her response. Her live broadcast to the nation in tribute to Diana, which she made a week after the crash, partly restored public opinion. Diana’s death, however, sparked much debate on the role of the monarchy, its perceived lack of “ popular ” touch , the formality of its institutions , and its size in terms of the number of royals with public duties.
In November 1999 Australia voted in a referendum to retain their country’s constitutional monarchy, thus maintaining Australia ’s ties with Britain. Elizabeth visited the country in 2002 during her tour of Commonwealth countries to mark the golden jubilee of her accession to the throne; a year also marked by the deaths of her mother , and sister Margaret. It is estimated that two million people attended the Golden Jubilee celebrations around Buckingham Palace, which included concerts and fireworks , in June.