Elizabeth I

Sarah Gristwood on the complex issues raised by the restoration of a remarkable Tudor vision of victory over the Spanish Armada.

Ian Friel argues that popular ideas of the nature of Elizabethan seapower are distorted by concentration on big names and major events. Elizabethan England’s emergence on to the world stage owed much more to merchant ships and common seamen than we might think.

According to the will of Henry VIII, it was the younger sister of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey who would follow Elizabeth I to the throne of England. Yet few now know of the short, passionate and dangerous life of Katherine Grey, writes Leanda de Lisle.

In November 1558 the young Elizabeth became queen of England. Norman Jones looks at evidence from the state papers to show how those close to her viewed the challenges faced in the early days by Elizabethan England.

Marie Rowlands charts the changing fortunes of a religious minority.

Did it matter that the fifth Tudor monarch was a woman rather than a man? Retha Warnicke investigates.

R. E. Foster surveys the changing interpretations and introduces the key facts.

John Foxe’s graphic and angry work depicting the persecutions inflicted by the Roman Catholic church, was partly a response to the rising tide of intolerance across Europe in the mid-sixteenth century, but more specifically to the recent persecution of Protestants in England. David Loades describes the impact of one of the most significant books of its time.

Sebastian Walsh looks at a forgotten friend and adviser to Queen Elizabeth from the early years of her reign.

Alexander Wilkinson considers what the French made of the controversial royal who played a pivotal role in the French wars of religion, both as Queen of Scots and Queen of France.