Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I was, to my eyes, the most important women for Britain of all times. There is history before Elizabeth and after her. She had the country just “starting” to be formed, in terms of language, culture, territory and also defending itself from other countries, but she also made the choices that became Britain in the world power we all know about.

What happened after Elizabeth reign? We could see in the movie many factors that were relevant to answer this question. First of all, Elizabeth was a protestant which broke the relationship that Britain had with Spain during Mary’s reign. I’ll explain this a little bit more. Elizabeth was Henry VIII daughter, and he was the man that actually kicked the church out of Britain because nobody accepted that he wanted to divorce of Catalina de Aragon. So the fight with Spain started there, when Henry declared himself kinds and pope of Britain. After he died, his other daughter became queen, Mary I. she was a catholic and she married a Spanish prince to rebuild the bonds with Spain. And finally Elizabeth comes to the power and she kick the church out again because they didn’t want her to rule alone (not to marry anyone) so she became protestant. This is the context to understand the fight between Spain and Britain and also its consequence: because the Catholics and they’re rules were not longer in Britain, people actually had some freedom related to the religion they followed (because Elizabeth didn’t kill Catholics for their credo).

Other important factor to understand the importance of Elizabeth’s reign is the expansion. When Sir Walter Raleigh arrived in Britain bringing “treasures” from the New World, Elizabeth realizes who important is that Britain spread its wings and knows the world outside. Before this, Britain was a country which still was looking for an identity and defending itself from outsiders, but after this episode, the country started looking for more territory, more places to trade with, and at the end, the conquer of places to make them colonies.

Finally, the last concept I’ll refer to is the queen Elizabeth itself. She was a strong women but with a big heart. She would defend her people to death because she loved them and believed in her mission, to rule the country but for the best of people.

She never got married because she didn’t need so, she was married to God, as she said, and her kids were her people. Maybe she didn’t want to get married because she knew that men want to fight and want more and more power, but only a woman can understand what it is to love the people under your command and protection more than anything. And this made the difference between her reign and all the others that had pass and the ones that would come after.