Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last monarch of the House of Tudor and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
The House of Tudor was a dynasty of largely Welsh and English origin that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including their ancestral Wales and the Lordship of Ireland for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII of England, descended through his mother from a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main House of Lancaster extinct in the male line.
The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. The current monarch is King Charles III, who ascended the throne on 8 September 2022, upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a highly restrictive franchise, similar to the unreformed House of Commons in contemporary England and Great Britain. Catholics were disqualified from sitting in the Irish parliament from 1691, even though they comprised the vast majority of the Irish population.
The Acts of Supremacy are two acts passed by the Parliament of England in the 16th century that established the English monarchs as the head of the Church of England; two similar laws were passed by the Parliament of Ireland establishing the English monarchs as the head of the Church of Ireland. The 1534 Act declared King Henry VIII and his successors as the Supreme Head of the Church, replacing the Pope. This first Act was repealed during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I. The 1558 Act declared Queen Elizabeth I and her successors the Supreme Governor of the Church, a title that the British monarch still holds.
The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and England is now part of the United Kingdom. The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval and early modern colonial periods.
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement is the name given to the religious and political arrangements made for England during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Implemented between 1559 and 1563, the settlement is considered the end of the English Reformation, permanently shaping the theology and liturgy of the Church of England and laying the foundations of Anglicanism's unique identity.
Succession to the British throne is determined by descent, sex, legitimacy, and religion. Under common law, the Crown is inherited by a sovereign's children or by a childless sovereign's nearest collateral line. The Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 restrict succession to the throne to the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover who are in "communion with the Church of England". Spouses of Catholics were disqualified from 1689 until the law was amended in 2015. Protestant descendants of those excluded for being Roman Catholics are eligible.
Havering Palace was an old royal residence in England. Between its building before 1066 until its abandonment in 1686 it was in the village of Havering-atte-Bower. By 1816 no walls remained above ground.
The Puritan choir was a theory advanced by historian Sir John Neale of an influential movement of radical English Protestants in the Elizabethan Parliament. In his biography Queen Elizabeth I Neale argues that throughout her reign Elizabeth I faced increasingly organised and dominant opposition to her policies in the House of Commons and that this strengthening of Parliament sowed the seeds for the English Civil War.
Bramber was a parliamentary borough in Sussex, one of the most notorious of all the rotten boroughs. It elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons in 1295, and again from 1472 until 1832, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act.
Stockbridge was a parliamentary borough in Hampshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1563 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act. It was one of the more egregiously rotten boroughs, and the first to have its status threatened for its corruption by a parliamentary bill to disfranchise it, though the proposal was defeated.
Sir John Ernest Neale was an English historian who specialised in Elizabethan and Parliamentary history. From 1927 to 1956, he was the Astor Professor of English History at University College London.
Thomas Cromwell was an English Member of Parliament during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His diaries of proceedings in the House of Commons are an important source for historians of parliamentary history during the period when he was a member, and Sir John Neale draws heavily upon them in his ground-breaking two-volume study of Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments (1953–1957).
Sampson Lennard, of Chevening in Kent, was an English Member of Parliament who represented an unusually large number of different constituencies during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain after the 1707 Act of Union was passed in both the English and Scottish parliaments at the time. In 1801, with the union of Great Britain and Ireland, that house was in turn replaced by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
The Reformation in Ireland was a movement for the reform of religious life and institutions that was introduced into Ireland by the English administration at the behest of King Henry VIII of England. His desire for an annulment of his marriage was known as the King's Great Matter. Ultimately Pope Clement VII refused the petition; consequently, in order to give legal effect to his wishes, it became necessary for the King to assert his lordship over the Catholic Church in his realm. In passing the Acts of Supremacy in 1534, the English Parliament confirmed the King's supremacy over the Church in the Kingdom of England. This challenge to Papal supremacy resulted in a breach with the Catholic Church. By 1541, the Irish Parliament had agreed to the change in status of the country from that of a Lordship to that of Kingdom of Ireland.
The 8th Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I was summoned by Queen Elizabeth I of England on 4 January 1593 and assembled on 19 February following. Edward Coke, the Solicitor-general and Member of Parliament (MP) for Norfolk, was appointed speaker of the commons. At the state opening of Parliament the Lord Keeper Sir John Puckering informed the house that the reasons for summoning the Parliament were the threat of Spanish invasion and the Queen's "extraordinarye and most excessive expenses". This parliament occurred in the context of an ongoing Spanish-English conflict. At the time parliament was called, the Spanish and English were in the midst of ongoing strife that began decades prior and threatened the prosperity of England. Although relations between Spain and England at the start of Elizabeth’s reign began in a largely cordial manner, the two countries came into conflict over their investments in the Americas along with religious differences; Spain was a Catholic nation while England was a largely Protestant nation. Philip II of Spain was in frequent competition with Elizabeth for influence and resources in the New World and sought to weaken England’s sway in the region. In 1582 Philip began preparing a fleet to invade England, the Spanish Armada. Three years later in 1585, Elizabeth and her government feared Philip’s growing power as his empire came “dangerously near to total supremacy in Western Europe,” which threatened the stability of Elizabeth’s rule. By 1588 the Spanish Armada had been successfully prepared for battle and began an invasion of England led by the duke of Medina Sidonia who sailed with 130 ships carrying 29,453 men in total. Their goal: overthrow Elizabeth. Ultimately, the Spanish Armada failed to defeat the British in battle and take Elizabeth’s crown, but it served as a stark reminder to England that the country was not safe from a Spanish threat. This matter of urgency was a major topic of discussion during the 8th Parliament.
The 4th Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I was summoned by Queen Elizabeth I of England on 28 March 1572 and assembled on 8 May 1572.
The Tillage Act 1597 was an Act of the Parliament of England passed during the reign of Elizabeth I.
