Elizabeth I (also known as Elizabeth the Great, or the \"Virgin Queen\") was born in 1533 into a dangerous world of political intrigue. When she was only two years old, her father, King Henry VIII killed her mother, Ann Boleyn, because she had not yet produced a male heir. Henry\'s routine killing of her successive stepmothers every few years traumatized Elizabeth, who loved her father. Although Henry finally did father a son, Edward VI, the boy did not live long, dying at the age of sixteen after a six-year reign, and thus Elizabeth\'s older sister Mary I came to the throne in 1553. Meanwhile, the young Elizabeth showed exceptional intelligence, excelling at her studies well beyond any of the other royal children.
A Catholic, Mary married the Hapsburg prince of Spain, the soon-to-be Philip II. Mary would come to be known as \"Bloody Mary\" for her harsh treatment of English Protestants in her attempt to restore Catholicism to England. When Sir Thomas Wyat the Younger\'s......
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