ELIZABETH I

Elizabeth I - the last Tudor monarch - was born at Greenwich on 7 September 1533, the daughter
of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Her early life was full of uncertainties, and her
chances of succeeding to the throne seemed very slight once her half-brother Edward was born in 
1537. She was then third in line behind her Roman Catholic half-sister, Princess Mary. Roman 
Catholics, indeed, always considered her illegitimate and she only narrowly escaped execution in 
the wake of a failed rebellion against Queen Mary in 1554. 
Although her small kingdom was threatened by grave internal divisions, Elizabeth’s blend of 
shrewdness, courage, and majestic self-display inspired ardent expressions of loyalty and helped unify 
the nation against foreign enemies. The adulation bestowed upon her both in her lifetime and in the 
ensuing centuries was not altogether a spontaneous effusion. It was the result of a carefully crafted, 
brilliantly executed campaign in which the queen fashioned herself as the glittering symbol of the 
nation’s destiny.  
Although Elizabeth is now hailed as one of our greatest monarchs, she should never have got anywhere near the throne. She was not only a girl at a time when the laws of succession favoured boys, but she had an elder sister, Mary. Elizabeth was also removed from the line of succession altogether when her parents’ marriage was declared invalid prior to Anne Boleyn’s execution, and was only reinstated thanks to the kindly intervention of her last stepmother, Katherine Parr.
By the time of Henry VIII’s death, therefore, Elizabeth was third in line to the throne behind her younger brother Edward and elder sister Mary. It is one of the greatest ironies of history that Henry VIII had been so obsessed with having a son, yet his cherished boy only reigned for six years, dying of tuberculosis at the age of just 15. The second in line, Mary, did not fare much better. Her brief, catastrophic reign ended after just five years. It was up to Elizabeth to show them how it ought to be done.
Queen Elizabeth, known as The Virgin Queen because she never married or had children, was the last Tudor monarch. When she died in 1603, deeply mourned by her people who called her Good Queen Bess or Gloriana, a new dynasty came to the throne: the Stuarts.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 


Mary, Queen of Scots, original name Mary Stuart, born December 8, 1542, Linlithgow Palace, 
West Lothian, Scotland—died February 8, 1587, Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, 
England. Queen of Scotland (1542–67) and queen consort of France (1559–60). 

Mary Stuart was the only child of King James V of Scotland and his French wife, Mary of Guise.
The death of her father six days after her birth left Mary as queen of Scotland in her own right. 
Although Mary’s great-uncle King Henry VIII of England made an unsuccessful effort to secure 
control of her, the regency of the kingdom was settled in favour of her mother.

Mary was sent to France at age five. There she was brought up at the court of King Henry II and 
his queen Catherine de Médicis. Mary summed up the contemporary ideal of the Renaissance 
princess at the time of her marriage to Francis, eldest son of Henry and Catherine, in April 1558. 
It was a political match aimed at the union of France and Scotland. 

The accession of Elizabeth Tudor to the throne of England in November 1558 meant that Mary 
was, by virtue of her Tudor blood, next in line to the English throne. Those Roman Catholics who considered Elizabeth illegitimate because they regarded Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of 
Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn invalid even looked upon Mary as the lawful queen.
Mary’s former pretensions to the English throne had incurred Elizabeth’s hostility. 

It was Mary’s second marriage in July 1565 to her cousin Henry Stuart that started the fatal train 
of events culminating in her destruction. In July 1567, Mary was compelled to abdicate the throne
in Scotland in favor of her infant son. In 1568, Mary escaped from Lochleven Castle. She raised 
an army but was soon defeated.

Mary then fled to England, where she sought Queen Elizabeth's protection. Instead of helping her 
cousin, Elizabeth imprisoned Mary. Mary's captivity would last for the next 18 years.

Since Mary was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and herself a Catholic, English 
Catholics plotted to get her onto the throne by assassinating Queen Elizabeth. Mary corresponded
with one such plotter, Anthony Babington. When Elizabeth's spymaster uncovered the letters in 
1586, Mary was brought to trial and found guilty of treason.





Henry VIII (1491-1557)
Henry VIII was born in 1491 as the son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. They were the first Tudor King and Queen after the reunion of the House of Lancaster and the House of York at the end of the War of the Roses. Accordingly, Henry was the second king of the Tudor Dynasty.

Resultado de imagen de henry 8thHenry is mainly known for playing a significant role in the English reformation and the break of the English church from Rome. The establishment of the new, protestant Church of England was not only owed to the the objective of the emancipation of England from the papal supremacy. At the young age of 10, Henry was promised to the Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his older brother, in order to strengthen the alliance between England and Spain. After his father’s death and his inherit of the throne, Henry married Catherine in spite of his prior opposition to the relation and he and Catherine were crowned in 1509. 

During the cause of their marriage, Henry grew increasingly discontent with their inability to produce a male heir together. Without the prospect of producing an heir with his wife, Henry considered his possibilities of having a legitimate son as the successor of his throne. Being 34 years old and enamoured with Anne Boleyn, a young woman in the Queen’s entourage, Henry increasingly wished an annulment from Catherine. This annulment however, was not granted by the pope. As a reaction to this, Henry VIII uprooted the strong catholic foundation of England and established a new, protestant church which was independent from Rome and the catholic leader, the pope. 
Changing a countries religion for your love life can be considered kind of egoistic, however this emancipation from the catholic church also helped England to get in control of their own stately matters except for relying on Rome. Henry seized church property to enrich the crown but also built new cathedrals and schools. 
In the course of his life, Henry used his newly gained freedom to the full extent by divorcing two wives, beheading two more, lost one to a sickness and was only outlived by his last wife Catherine Howard. 

As becomes evident, Henry was a King of contrasts.
Sources: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdZcqAss92w
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-VIII-king-of-England

Thomas More (1478 - 1535)
Thomas More, in full Sir Thomas More, also called Saint Thomas More, (born February 7, 1478, London, England—died July 6, 1535, London; canonized May 19, 1935; feast day June 22), English humanist and statesman, chancellor of England (1529–32), who was beheaded for refusing to accept King Henry VIII ashead of the Church of England. He is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.
Sir Thomas More was born in London on February 7, 1478. He went on to study at Oxford and had received enough education to become a lawyer. Instead, in 1517 he entered the king’s service. This was after he spent time grappling with the decision of either becoming a monk or devoting himself to civil service work.
Thomas More worked hard for the king. He work as : chief diplomat, speechwriter, advisor. More and the king continued to establish a close relationship, with More rising up in the ranks. He was knighted in 1521, became speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, and earned the title of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
King Henry was married to Catherine of Aragon but had reportedly developed an infatuation with the alluring Anne Boylan.Trouble started brewing when King Henry wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon. He used the Bible to try to persuade More that the marriage was never void since Catherine was originally his brother’s wife, thus it was against God’s law from the start. 
With his roots in law and philosophy, More was a logical thinker and could not share the king’s viewpoint. He was also a venerated Catholic and saw the divorce as anti-Catholic.
In 1532, More resigned from the House of Commons. His reasoning: “poor health.”
Though More’s failure to appear at the coronation of Anne Boleyn in June 1533 might have indicated that he was faking sick.
y reason.  Sir Thomas Moore was always dabbling in his other interests. One such interest was writing. His most notable work was Utopia, written in 1516. It was a socio-political satire that was about a political system made from imaginary ideals. It’s where the term utopian society comes from today, in which policies are governed b
Things only got worse when King Henry enacted a law in 1534 declaring him supreme ruler of the world over everyone, including the pope. Part of the law required all citizens to accept this by taking an oath called the Oath of Supremacy. Which Thomas More didn´t accepted 
On April 17, 1534, in the Tower of London King Henry cited treason in Thomas More’s refusal to take the oath.Sir Thomas More was beheaded on July 6, 1535.
His final words were: “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.”

Sir Thomas More
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-More-English-humanist-and-statesman
https://allthatsinteresting.com/sir-thomas-more









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