by Carol H. Morgan

Created on: May 10, 2010   Last Updated: May 29, 2010

They say history is written by the winners.  And few historical figures have hit a history-making jackpot as big as that of England's Elizabeth I, second daughter of larger-than-life Henry VIII and the last in the line of the Tudor monarchs.  She navigated a world full of peril and intrigue, overcoming everything from the murder of her mother to sexual abuse to become one of the most successful and powerful rulers in history.  That success allowed her to further shape her historical image, giving her virtue and honor perhaps even exceeding her actual accomplishments. 

Elizabeth emerges from the events surrounding her birth and life as the untouchable heroine of her own story, even in propaganda put out about her five hundred years later.  Recently-made movies and biopics about her life continue to exaggerate her virtues and neglect her shortcomings, extending the number of her fans and advocates into modern day.  Those who continue to learn her story assume that she is indeed the carefully-crafted Gloriana figure that saved her country from the evil Catholic Spanish and whose virtuous virginal qualities substituted for the Virgin Mary that she forced her subjects to give up for her. The facts about her life, however, cloud that story, even while they remain impressive and well worth telling.

ELIZABETH'S BIRTH AND YOUTH

Elizabeth's life began on rather tenuous ground.  Her birth in 1533 disappointed the most powerful man in her life and the realm in which she was born.  Her father wanted a son so badly that her mother went so far as to promise it to Henry VIII, as a reward for tearing apart his former marriage to Catholic Catherine of Aragon.  For this prize her father risked peace with Catholic Europe, a relationship with the Pope, and his immortal soul (which to a life-long practicing Catholic was no small sacrifice). Henry began to think of the baby's gender as a given, and cheerfully made up birth announcements to hail the birth of his prince, to which he had to cram in an extra "s" in order to use them to announce the princess that he didn't really want or need.

But his prince  was not to be, at least not with this pregnancy or wife. When Anne Boleyn (the king's second of six wives) concluded the long and difficult labor that brought Elizabeth into this world there was only bitter dissappointment,

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