Queen of a Golden Age Part Two
Queen Elizabeth I’s coronation on 15 January 1559 was a dazzling affair. She had arrived in Westminster the previous day borne in a litter of gold brocade with her Master of the Horse, Robert Dudley, in attendance. Crowds cheered the tall, gracious, smiling young woman – such a welcome contrast to her late, chronically sick half-sister Queen Mary – and there were pageants and feasting.
Thus began a reign that would be celebrated as a golden era – yet from the outset, 25-year-old Elizabeth faced daunting challenges. A precarious childhood and youth of shifting fortunes during the reigns of her father Henry VIII, Protestant half-brother Edward VI and Catholic Mary had nevertheless prepared her well with hard lessons in survival and self-reliance.
In the swaggering masculine world of 16th-century England, many people considered women to be intellectually and
