The Truth About England’s Most Famous Queen D
after Queen Elizabeth the died her counselors searched her belongings and found a letter buried deep in them when they looked closer their blood ran cold stick around to find out exactly what they found in 1533 Elizabeth was born into the biggest Scandal of her time her mother and Bolin had seduced her way into King Henry VII’s bedroom and triggered his Monumental divorce from Katherine of Aragon the Scandal that started the English reformation and that was really just the beginning not too many people can say that their own father executed their mother but that’s exactly what happened to poor Elizabeth and Bolin fell out of King Henry’s favor and he beheaded his Queen on May 19th 1536 when Elizabeth was just over 2 years old Elizabeth also had to deal with a new stepmom very soon
after and Bolin went to The Gallows Henry’s third Queen Jane Seymour moved into the palace just 11 days after the execution then just a year after Seymour married King Henry VII Elizabeth had a new baby brother Edward but he wasn’t just any baby brother he was the male Heir Henry VII literally killed for by the age of 12 Elizabeth had translated her stepmother Katherine parr’s English work prayers or meditation into no fewer than three different languages Italian Latin and French and gave it to her father as a present in fact by the time Elizabeth was done with her schooling she was probably one of the best educated women of her time while she was still a teenager her father finally passed leaving Elizabeth an orphan in the care of her step-mother Katherine Parr par almost immediately married Thomas Seymour the new king’s uncle almost as soon as Princess
Elizabeth moved in with her fost parents The 40-Year-Old Seymour started behaving in increasingly disturbing ways towards her first he would creep into her bedroom in his night gown and tickle the princess according to records from the time Elizabeth’s stepmother Katherine Parr did nothing to stop these inappropriate behaviors in fact she even participated in them at least twice she helped her husband tickle Elizabeth and in a particularly alarming incident she held the princess down as Seymour ripped the girl’s dress into pieces Katherine Parr made a chilling Discovery she stumbled across Seymour and the teenaged Elizabeth locked in an Embrace indicating that the inappropriate interactions were quickly becoming romantic whether from jealousy or for fear for the girl par sent the princess away soon after but that was not the last Elizabeth saw of Seymour mere months after sending Elizabeth away
Katherine par perished in childbirth with his wife conveniently out of the way the widowed Seymour turned his attention back to the teenage princess the Royal Council had had enough of Seymour’s creepy scheming and they charged him with treason for his plot to marry Elizabeth the princess’s Tormentor was finally executed on March 20th 1549 Elizabeth was still barely in her teen years on July 6th 1553 Elizabeth’s brother Edward Henry VII’s only male Heir died throwing the Kingdom into chaos shockingly he named his cousin Jane gray not his sisters Elizabeth or Mary as his successor suddenly Mary and Elizabeth found themselves fighting for their Birthright Elizabeth and Mary proved too powerful for Jane gray and her forces she was defeated and became known as the nine days Queen in August 1553 Mary rode into London to officially
claim the throne it could have been a triumphant moment of sisterly love but that’s not quite how it went down Elizabeth and Mary were very different people and not just because they had different mothers Mary’s mother Catherine of Aragon raised her to be a strict Catholic meanwhile Elizabeth born not just at the height of the English Reformation but practically because of it was Protestant even as young girls Mary and Elizabeth had never been friends Mary refused to recognize that Anne Bolin was Queen or even even that Elizabeth was a princess Mary might have had another big reason for being jealous of Elizabeth her husband King Philip reportedly planned to marry Elizabeth should anything happened to Mary particularly if she perished in childbirth you don’t get the nickname Bloody Mary for nothing and Mary’s Reign quickly became unpopular for her ruthless persecution of Protestants as
well as her infamously gruesome method of burning Heretics at the stake so when a rebellion broke out in 1554 Mary instantly suspected Elizabeth and threw her sister in the Tower of London for three terrifying months Elizabeth’s life hung in the balance at the tower during this time Mary’s advisers whispered in her ear that while Elizabeth breathed her throne would never be safe the only thing to do they said was to execute her own sister in the end Elizabeth supporters in Mary’s Court convinced the queen to spare her sister’s life Mary exiled Elizabeth to the countryside and put her under house arrest then in 1558 Queen Mary who had been unhealthy for some time passed without having had any children Elizabeth was next in line for the throne princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth the first from the
moment she became Queen Elizabeth’s advisers assumed she would take a husband not only to strengthen England’s power but also to help produce an air though she considered eligible candidates until she was 50 she never did tie the knot Elizabeth might never have married but her bedroom Antics became Infamous one of her most notorious Dianes was with her handsome childhood friend Robert Dudley unfortunately there was one big problem when it came to Robert Dudley he was already married his wife Amy robsart was battling breast cancer and everyone assumed she wasn’t long for this world but the way she died was much more suspicious and violent than anyone could have [Music] predicted Dudley’s wife Amy passed in September 1560 but not from breast cancer she died after falling down a
flight of stairs the coroner might have ruled it an accident but many people in the palace assumed Dudley had done the deed to secure his Queen’s affections their road to the altar finally seemed clear but was it historians agree that Elizabeth was fully prepared to marry Dudley but as her childhood friend held no political clout and as Royals from all over Europe were currently vying for the Queen’s hand her counselors told her in no uncertain terms that if she married dudle they would Revolt Elizabeth reluctantly backed off the marriage but that didn’t mean she forgot about Dudley the queen was intensely jealous of Dudley’s time and affections so when she discovered his ultimate betrayal she was enraged in 1578 Dudley married Elizabeth’s distant relative Leti NES he tried to keep the nuptuals a secret which made it all the worse when Elizabeth found out when the queen got
wind of her true love’s wedding she was so Furious that she banished Leti from her court she never forgave the woman and never acknowledged the nuptuals as long as she lived Elizabeth’s refusal to ever marry and her nickname the Virgin Queen skyrocketed her to cult status poets wrote about her in bombastic terms comparing her to figures like goddesses and the Virgin Mary besides the Virgin Queen Elizabeth’s other nicknames were Gloriana and good Queen Bess but the real woman behind the nicknames was far from perfect although Elizabeth the was always careful to present her best self which often meant wearing heavy makeup her Cosmetics had a dark side the queen’s makeup was made of abrasive and even poisonous products like lead and vinegar which did major damage to Elizabeth’s skin and health the queen also had a notorious Sweet Tooth as well
as a fear of dentists as she Grew Older her teeth started to yellow and Decay crumbling in on each other it was so bad that foreign dignitaries often couldn’t even understand Elizabeth when she spoke to them Elizabeth’s gross dental hygiene actually started a trend since sugar was considered a luxury some women then blackened their teeth both to emulate their Queen and show off their wealth some historians believe Elizabeth was what we’d call a polyglot or someone with an innate skill for learning foreign tongues she could speak 11 languages including Latin Greek and even Aramaic and spoke many as if they were her native language one of Elizabeth’s most bitter enemies was also one of her closest relatives her Catholic cousin Mary Queen of Scots from the very beginning Mary posed a threat to Elizabeth’s Reign and
religion spurring A Game of Thrones for the ages for a while Elizabeth and Mary went to the fremy route despite the fact that Elizabeth supported Scotland’s Rebels against Mary she still bizly offered up her favorite Robert Dudley for Mary to Wed but neither Mary nor Dudley were smitten with each other and Elizabeth’s awkward Ploy fizzled out eventually Mary’s forces grew so strong and her decisions became so erratic Elizabeth had to take drastic action she tore Mary away from her baby son imprisoned her in lock Len castle and then forced her to abdicate astonishingly Mary spent the next 19 years of her life under Elizabeth’s guard but Elizabeth’s most chilling Act was yet to come one day Queen Elizabeth discovered that Mary Queen of Scots was helping incite a rebellion against the English crown from her jail cell
Elizabeth responded with a brutal show of force on February 8th 1587 Mary Queen of Scots met the axe after Mary’s death Elizabeth grew intensely remorseful and even claimed that she had signed her cousin’s warrant without understanding her advisors would carry it out immediately while it’s possible Elizabeth’s regret was very real many historians are suspicious of her backtracking after all it’s pretty hard to sign someone’s death warrant half-heartedly Elizabeth’s Reign is known as a golden age of exploration one of her favorite explorers was Francis Drake who circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 158 0 earning himself a Knighthood from his queen Queen Elizabeth is perhaps most famous for defeating the Spanish Armada which put a little thing called British Sea power on the map after Elizabeth’s Envoy Francis
Drake raided Spanish ships King Philip of Spain yes Elizabeth’s ex- brother-in-law decided he had quite enough of England and took immediate action Philip II sent his Spanish Armada to invade England in 1588 bent on destroying Elizabeth and her Reign to everyone’s surprise the great Naval power of Spain succumbed to the attacks of English fir ships Philip’s Navy had to turn tail and return back to Spain in shambles Elizabeth used the crisis of the conflict with Spain to turn herself into a warrior Queen when she inspected her troops on August 8th 1588 she dawned a silver breastplate under a white dress her speech has gone to down in history I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman she said but I have the heart and stomach of a king and a king of England
too people now see the Spanish Armada as a turning point in Elizabeth’s Reign and it was but it was a very different Victory than what people imagine the Triumph was more of a propaganda campaign for Elizabeth than anything else as the English success hinged on Spanish mistakes rather than British power in fact the very next year England sent 150 ship Fleet to Spain where they were defeated up to 15,000 men lost their lives and Spain actually held on to its Naval dominance at the time though many historians note that Elizabeth stayed single in order to hold on to power and play her suitors off of one another she did get serious with men other than Robert Dudley when when she was courting Francis Duke of Anu she often wore a frog-shaped earring the Duke had given her as a token of his affection Elizabeth’s Reign was truly a
golden age for many in addition to Francis drg’s Feats at Sea literature blossomed during this time with Heavy Hitters like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlo writing Masterworks but let’s not give too much credit to good Queen Bes here she wasn’t really much of a patron of the Arts another of the great English Poets of the time Edmund Spencer paid homage to Elizabeth in his epic poem The Fairy Queen Elizabeth the first is the character of belbe a strong virgin Huntress who fights off her wouldbe attackers Elizabeth must have liked the portrayal as Spencer was one of the only writers she ever patronized Elizabeth lived in poverty after her mother’s execution her father Henry VII ignored and neglected her so completely that Elizabeth’s Guardian had to beg the king for finances to provide Elizabeth with clothes that fit her later when she became Queen Elizabeth collected more than 2,000 dresses and
even that wasn’t enough she allegedly took a dress from one of her Maids out of Envy when she saw how good it looked on her it’s no wonder then that Elizabeth the first loved clothes not only did she start many fashion trends but her clothes were routinely tweaked and updated and carefully chosen based on what look she needed to convey mostly trying to invoke ideas of Purity and Divinity but she was also generous with her things and passed hand me downs to her ladies in Waiting although generous with her servants Elizabeth the first expected total loyalty and was quick to fly into a rage just like her father during one Outburst after her maid had angered her she broke the maid’s finger with a hairbrush even worse the guilty Queen told everyone it was an accident involving a fallen Candlestick sometimes Elizabeth trusted her ladies in Waiting as Royal jailers one of her favorite attendants was Bess
of Hardwick who was likely the most powerful lady in waiting in the Queen’s Court in 1569 Elizabeth even asked Hardwick and her husband to hold Mary Queen of Scots on her behalf the couple performed this thankless Duty for 15 years as she Grew Older Elizabeth’s cour years never let on that her beauty was fading and continued to compliment her as if she was still the 25-year-old Queen she had been at her coronation sadly it seems as though Elizabeth started to believe them and played favorites with whomever could compliment her the most this had very dire consequences one of Elizabeth’s favorites later in life was Robert Deo Earl of Essex who took advantage of his good looks to quickly rise at cour Court gaining great power with very little responsibility in 1599 he deserted his high military post for the eenth time
and Elizabeth finally reprimanded him putting him under house arrest and taking away his luxuries in 16001 Essex plotted to kidnap the queen and take power for himself unfortunately for him he didn’t count on the fact that well nobody liked him and he had close to zero supporters Elizabeth caught wind of the meager plot and finally coming to terms with her lack of judgment had him beheaded the queen never got over deo’s death in 16002 a good year after her favorites plot against her one cordier remarked that her Delight is to sit in the dark and sometimes with shedding tears to bewail Essex just a few years before her death Elizabeth claimed that though single she was actually married to her kingdom in a speech she referred to all my husbands my good people Elizabeth’s last years were full of heartache and tragedy in the fall of
16002 just months before her end many of her friends and loved ones passed on leaving the queen depressed and despondent according to those close to her she spent her last days lying motionless on cushions in an unremovable Melancholy just before she passed Elizabeth finally chose a successor at least unofficially James I 6 the son of her Fallen cousin Mary Queen of Scots her advisers secretly prepped James to be the heir getting him to butter up Elizabeth with a couple of complimentary letters though she never publicly declared James as her successor Elizabeth apparently made her intentions known to her advisers on March 24th 16003 Queen Elizabeth I passed during the early hours of the morning at Richmond Palace she was 69 years old and her Reign remains one of the most famous in British
history Elizabeth the left bizarre instructions for her body after she died breaking with the Royal tradition of embalming she insisted that people leave her body intact many whispered that this was to guard her Secrets but either way her ever loyal ladies in Waiting made sure to protect her wishes even after death after Elizabeth passed her advisers searched her belongings and found a letter buried deep in them its contents were heartbreaking it was a letter from her old lover Robert Dudley who had passed just after the Spanish Armada in 1588 but even more touching than the letter itself was the note Elizabeth had scrolled on it she marked it as his last letter to her since she had no air the house of tutor which began in 1485 with Henry viith ended with Elizabeth although she kept it on the down low for political
reasons Elizabeth loved her mother and Bolin very much she quietly honored her and her family by taking care of their positions at court and always kept her mother’s portrait in a locket on her necklace after Queen Elizabeth II who reigned for 70 years and Queen Victoria who reigned for 63 Elizabeth I is the longest reigning British Queen she was in power for 44 years thank you for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it please like And subscribe for more videos like this one
