How Elizabeth I Defied Her Enemies and Transformed England

Queen Elizabeth I may have been a virgin, but what most people don't know is that she was one of the most brutally cutthroat and significant rulers England has ever seen

A badass to some, a merciless imperialist to others, it's clear that our girl Liz stands out among the storied lineage of English monarchy

Today we're exploring why Elizabeth I was the most hardcore ruler England has ever seen

The England that Elizabeth inherited in 1558 was not exactly picture perfect

Her dad, Henry VIII, had done what no other monarch had done before him

He expanded the monarchy by breaking up with the Catholic Church and making England a Protestant country

And let's just say it wasn't an easy breakup. That religious rupture with Europe had profound effects and led to conflicts between Catholics and Protestants

England was a mess, torn apart by instability and in desperate need of a hashtag imperialist

navy-obsessed girlboss who wouldn't suffer fools. So after her father's death, Elizabeth took the throne as a young woman who was never supposed

to be queen. She may not have looked it, but she was up to the task. Elizabeth wasn't a big dater

In fact, she was turned off by the whole marriage thing after the disastrous marriage politics

of her father and older half-sister, Queen Mary I. Elizabeth's dad went through six wives over the course of his royal career

and Mary's marriage to a Spanish king inspired passionate outrage by her English subjects

Talk about drama. Furthermore, Elizabeth's situation was delicate. As a woman, she risked losing her independence

since she already had plenty of people who doubted her capacity to rule. Marrying a foreign prince was a dance in foreign policy

Marrying a subject was a dance in domestic policy. And also, dating is hard in general

Can you imagine how much harder it would be if you were a literal queen? Instead of getting hitched, Elizabeth branded herself as a virgin queen and famously quipped

I will have here but one mistress and no master. Even though many believed it was against the laws of nature for a woman to rule, Elizabeth proved them all wrong

By not marrying, she was able to preserve English autonomy and minimize factionalism amongst the English nobility

Or maybe she just wasn't a big fan of royal weddings. Either way, being single and ready to mingle served Elizabeth as well as England

Elizabeth was never really supposed to succeed the throne. She was her father's second daughter, officially at least

Though she was born legitimate in 1533, her standing in the royal family quickly changed

when her mother Anne Boleyn fell from grace and was beheaded in 1536

Since her mom was executed, that made Elizabeth become illegitimate and thus unlikely to ever succeed the throne

Most thought she wouldn become queen ever especially after her father had a son in 1537 Henry VIII line of succession kept growing pushing his red illegitimate daughter further and further down the line But in a strange twist of fate Liz younger brother died in 1553

Suddenly, the crown passed to her sister Mary, causing Elizabeth to move up the food chain

When Mary married Philip of Spain, no kids were born. Because she had no children, Mary named her younger half-sister as her heir

So when Elizabeth finally became queen in 1558, she succeeded because she was the last heiress of Henry VIII's standing

It was a real slow and steady wins the crown situation. Hell hath no fury like an angry queen

As queen, Elizabeth expected that her courtiers should show her respect. But her well-known vanity often made it difficult for would-be spouses to wed under Elizabeth's watchful eye

Several of her ladies-in-waiting, Bess Throckmorton and Catherine Gray, most notably, earned the Queen's scorn when they secretly married their lovers without the Queen's knowledge or permission

In fact, when Mary Shelton, the Queen's second cousin, secretly married John Scudamore without the Queen's permission, she suffered a broken finger when Elizabeth smacked her hand with her hairbrush

Yep, you heard that right. Queen Elizabeth I was a hairbrush-smacking control freak who controlled all her friends' marriages

Very normal stuff. Men were just as likely to get on the royal s*** list as women

Explorer Sir Walter Raleigh fell in and out of favor with Elizabeth. Dashing and headstrong courtier Robert Devereaux, Lord Essex

tried her patience and flouted her command so incessantly and treasonously that he ultimately lost his head

Whoopsie! The England that Elizabeth ruled was a golden age of the arts

exploration, and weirdly, piracy. England's chief naval rival was Spain, and English privateers

stole buckets of goods and money from Spanish ships traveling to and from the Americas

Spain complained bitterly that English so-called privateers ransacked their ships, but Elizabeth did nothing to curb the exploits of men like Sir Walter Raleigh

and Sir Francis Drake. In fact, she rewarded piracy. Elizabeth may have been vain, but she was also the perfect combo of beauty and brains

Full of energy, she proved to be a queen who liked activity and educational study in equal measures

She was extremely educated and well-read. She was fluent in no less than six languages other than her native English

Latin, French, Greek, Spanish, Italian, and Welsh. She was extremely educated and well-read

Not just a bookworm, Liz the Virgin was also an unapologetic jock

She was an avid hunter and horsewoman, and her court was famous for dancing the night away

She was, in fact, the dancing queen. If you had an entire country wealth at your disposal you probably want someone around to read your astrology chart whenever you wanted right

Well, that's what Elizabeth did when she was queen. One of Elizabeth's most trusted advisors was actually someone who believed in alchemy and astrology

John D., or Dr. D., as he was called, was one of the most respected men of science in

the Elizabethan world. He was a mathematician, a scientist, an alchemist, and an astrologer whose consul Elizabeth

routinely sought. In fact, Dee encouraged Elizabeth's imperial politics and was steadfast

in his belief that the future of England was in North America. Sounds like a total Scorpio

if you ask me. Dee wasn't just a man of astrology and science. He was also kind of a goth kid

His particular interest in the occult brought interesting characters into his life

For years, Dee turned to Edward Kelly for his own spiritual guidance. Edward Kelly, of course

was known to have secret occult knowledge and claimed that he could communicate with angels

Also, fun fact, Dee was probably the real-life inspiration for the character of Prospero in

William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Just because you're known as a virgin doesn't mean you have to actually abstain from sex

right? Indeed, throughout her reign, Elizabeth hooked up with a list of royal adjacent faves

Most notably was Robert Dudley, the Earl of Essex, who was a companion and advisor to the

Queen for several decades. Some scholars even believe that Dudley was actually the love of her

life. Elizabeth was a known appreciator of male beauty and maintained flirtations with the Duke

of Anjou, a prospective husband, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Thomas Hainage. As she aged, she made no effort

to tone down her flirting. Towards the end of her reign, the young Robert Devereaux, stepson to her

former favorite Robert Dudley, rose quickly in her favor, despite the fact he was 33 years younger

than the queen. Someone get a tracking device because this cougar is on the hunt. Meow. Rob

flirted his way into royal appointments, and their relationship sent tongues wagging at court. He was

as vain as he was handsome, however, and his star fell as quickly as it rose. Sadly, their relationship

ended after he led a rebellion against Gloriana. Elizabeth broke things off with him by having his

head separate from the rest of his body. As a teen, Elizabeth spent part of her time with her

widowed stepmother, Catherine Parr, who had been her father's sixth and final wife. After the death

of her royal husband, Parr had married Thomas Seymour in 1547, and Seymour moved in with his

new wife and her 14-year-old stepdaughter. Anyway, Liz's new pseudo-stepdad started being

really creepy. He harassed the poor teen by tickling her and accidentally walking in when

she was nude. This caused quite a stir. Catherine caught on to the scandal quickly and gave it the

kibosh Furious Catherine sent Elizabeth away in a bid to separate them Tabloidesque rumors followed the young princess suggesting that she was pregnant with Seymour child The rumors however weren true But some speculate that her predatory stepfather relationship is what turned her off to future relationships

with men. In 1554, Elizabeth's sister, Mary, who was the Queen of England at the time, became deeply

suspicious of her younger sister. In the wake of Wyatt's rebellion, Mary feared Elizabeth could

potentially usurp the throne. As a result, Mary imprisoned her sister in the Tower of London for

several months in the spring of 1554. Elizabeth toiled away in that tower, locked up and miserable

for months. The guilt of imprisoning Elizabeth must have eaten away at Mary because eventually

she did name Elizabeth as her only heir days before her death four years later

The Elizabethan era is known as a golden age in English history

a time when the literary arts popped off. This is largely due to the fact that England was relatively peaceful throughout Elizabeth's reign

Due to peace throughout the land, this guy named Shakespeare was able to try out a few plays

and this other guy, Sir Edmund Spencer, tried his hand at poetry. Elizabeth also cultivated a literary court

and many of her courtiers were themselves poets, like Sir Philip Sidney and Thomas Sackville

Since Elizabeth ascended to the throne in the most unlikely of circumstances

it was natural she felt a little paranoid about her power. Intelligence was thus important to her security

and so she kept a spymaster around, Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham was an ardent Protestant

and much of his intelligence was meant to limit the influence of Catholic Spain

and he had spies placed throughout the country. Walsingham also worked with his agents to code and decode letters

a true 16th century James Bond. The Babington plot in 1586 was an attempt to assassinate Elizabeth I

and intended to replace her with her Catholic cousin Mary, the exiled Queen of Scotland, a.k.a. Mary Queen of Scots

The Babington plot was intended to allow Spanish forces to invade England

The plot, hatched by its namesake, Anthony Babington and John Ballard, was as brazen as it was treasonous

Elizabeth's spymaster, Francis Walsingham, used his master spy skills and uncovered the plot

thwarting it completely. This did, however, lead to the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary was lured into the plot by Walsingham himself, who, in double agent style

lured her into the arrangement so he could gain evidence she was a tangible threat to Elizabeth's

throne. Sneaky. Lover or hater, it's clear that Queen Elizabeth I's reign of England restored the

chaotic turmoil-filled nation to powerful empire status. Between her navy building and arts

encouraging, it's clear that Liz has forever cemented her place in history as one of the

most memorable and hardcore queens of all time