Elizabeth I (1533–1603) was Queen of England from 1558 to 1603, whose forty-five-year reign — the Elizabethan Age — stabilized a religiously torn country, defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and presided over an explosion of English literature, theater and sea power.
Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, declared illegitimate and nearly executed under her Catholic sister Mary, she survived by political cunning alone — then ruled as a master of image, balance and delay, never marrying and leaving no heir, which ended the Tudor dynasty with her.
