Well…yes and no.  Elizabeth was certainly enlightened, certainly fostered cultural and societal development, and the British Isles propsered under her reign.  However, she did have moments of cruelty, and brutality.  She was everything bright and beautiful in the middle ages and she was also ruthless, cold and calculating when she had to be.  She was quoted as saying 'My father was a lion, and I am the lion's cub.'  She imprisoned and eventually executed her cousin and rival to the throne Mary Queen of Scots.  She also employed many spies and assassins which she used on a regular basis, (both on her home soil and abroad).  Like her father, she also loved flattery and constant ego pumping.  Many were imprisoned under her rule for simply disagreeing with her policies.  We also have to understand the times in which she lived, and also try to remember that as a single female monarch she was a constant target for plots and probable assassination attempts.  Part of her had to be an Ice Queen for her to survive.  I believe that she was a good ruler and that Britain prospered under her immensely but she wasn't all light, love, and 'The Virgin Queen'.  She could and was capable of doing whatever it took to remain on the throne, and if it involved cruelty, murder, and imprisonment she wasn't above using it.  Unlike her father who was basically a maniacal tyrant (especially towards the end) Elizabeth did what she felt she needed to do, probably with a great deal of thought and planning on her part.  If what was required was brutal she didn't feel a compunction to do it. 

Elizabeth is also a favorite of mine… 

After everything she went through as a child, she grew up to be a very wise woman. Yes she may have done things that were not conventional, but she tried to avoid violence at all costs. 

Many thing we will never know because she was famous for keeping her own counsel. Some say she was broken up about the Mary Queen of Scots incident, others say she rejoiced at her demise. We'll never truly know unless we ask her ourselves. 

Oh wow… 

Is Mother Teresa and Princess Diana on the list? It seems like that list a little crazy. 

Mary I had issues. Do they excuse what she did, not really, but it makes it a bit easier to understand her frame of mind when she condoned those actions. As for the rest, well, I don't agree with most of it. Luther, Calvin, Shakespeare were not evil. Neither was Elizabeth I.. 

Henry is too complex… I couldn't say if he was TRULY evil..  Misguided maybe, but not evil. 

ipaud said:

Dear Madam,

I have an interesting one for you on Elisabeth I.

Henry VIII was the first King of England to have anything near a Navy, England always had ships, but not organised.

Elisabeth I saw the potential and really developed the Navy. In Elisabeth's time, England as the song goes “Ruled the waves” because of one master stroke by her. Elisabeth replaced inaccurate  large cannons with large quantities of smaller ones. This technology allowed the English ships to dominate in battle on the sea. The way it worked was, an English ship would get fired upon by lets say a Spanish vessel. Generally, even if the English ship was hit, the damage was slight. By the time the Spanish have reloaded, the English ship would have pulled up beside and with an array of smaller cannons fired together, the result was a quickly sunk enemy vessel.

One would think that after a little while and loosing countless ships, England's foes at sea would have tried to match them. It took nearly 100 years, long after Elisabeth's death before the French, Spanish and the other sea faring countries caught up. By that time, England was well on its way to having an Empire. All thanks to this great lady's thinking.

Heres the best part though,

The British Navy know this history well and recently founded or made one of Elisabeth's navy cannons based on one they found well preserved and recovered from one of Elisabeth's ships in the English Channel.

They wanted to fire one of these cannons made in the same way as back then, using the same materials to see how accurate and over what distance it was effective, last year, the British navy did so, and it preformed much more than expected.

All involved were in awe!

Back then, England and its Queen were not to be messed with, what a fiery lady in many respects,

my hat is off to you, Elisabeth! 

Paudie.

Welll   Said !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also think Elizabeth I is the second most interesting figure of the Tudor dynasty. Anne Boleyn was the one who turned European History upside down, and Elizabeth enjoyed the most glorious reign England has ever had. As Anne said in “Anne of the Thousand Days,” “…my Elizabeth…and my blood will have been well spent.”