(September 7, 1533–March 24, 1603), the Queen of England and Ireland, 1558–1603, was the last Tudor monarch. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. After her navy, under Sir Francis Drake, destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588, England was established as a major European power.
In 1558, in answer to the question at her Coronation as to the presence of Christ in the Sacrament, Queen Elizabeth I stated:
Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.102
Queen Elizabeth I asserted:
I am your Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.103
In 1601, in The Golden Speech, Queen Elizabeth stated:
Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned with your loves.104
Regarding her epitaph, Queen Elizabeth I stated to her ladies:
I am no lover of pompous title, but only desire that my name may be recorded in a line or two, which shall briefly express my name, my virginity, the years of my reign, the reformation of religion under it, and my preservation of peace.105