ELIZABETH 



half of Elizabeth's reign, extending 

 almost to the close of the reign of 

 her successor. Before this time it 

 woxild be hard to name any English 

 writers with a real title to the 

 epithet great, except Chaucer and 

 perhaps Thomas More. But at 

 last the creative literary spirit was 

 fermenting. The drama was bom. 

 After the Armada the great poetic 

 flood burst forth Spenser's Faerie 

 Queene, Marlowe's tragedies, and 

 then Shakespeare ; and, following 

 upon Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and 

 others. The foundations were laid 

 also of an English prose literature 

 by the Essays of Francis Bacon, 

 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, the 

 vigorous narrative of Raleigh, and 

 also by the eccentricities of Lyly 

 and imitators, and the efforts of 

 Sir Philip Sidney, in the search for 

 a prose style. 



Both the maritime and the liter- 

 ary energy were the expression of 

 what was the fundamental charac- 

 teristic of the Elizabethan period, 

 its intense vitality, with free play 

 for its activities. The " spacious 

 days " are rightly named. Intel- 

 lectually, as well as geographically, 

 the horizon had been infinitely en- 

 larged, the cramping conditions of 

 the Middle Ages had been broken 

 down ; the new oceans and new 

 lands were only the material type 

 of the new intellectual and spiritual 

 field which lay open to exploration 

 and cultivation. $eeillus. p. 1113. 



Bibliography. Lives of the Queens 

 of England, A. Strickland, 1857 ; 

 Lives of Elizabeth, E. S. Beesly, 

 1892 ; Mandell Creighton, new ed. 

 1899 ; The Courtships of Queen 

 Elizabeth, M. A. S. Hume, rev. ed. 

 1904 ; Political History of England, 

 A. F. Pollard, vol. vi, 1910. 



Elizabeth (c. 1437-92). Queen 

 of Edward IV of England. She 

 was the daughter of Sir Richard 

 Woodville, af- 

 terwards Earl 

 Rivers, and was 

 married first to 

 Sir John Grey, 

 who died in 

 1461. The 

 young king met 

 the handsome 

 widow while 

 hunting, and 

 married her se- 

 cretly in 1464, 

 and in 1465 she was acknowledged 

 queen and crowned. Of her chil- 

 dren by the king her eldest son 

 became king as Edward V, and her 

 eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became 

 the queen of Henry VII. She re- 

 founded Queens' College, Cam- 

 bridge, originally founded by 

 Henry VTs consort, Margaret of 

 Anjou. She was buried in S. 

 George's Chapel, Windsor. 



Elizabeth Wood- 

 ville, Queen of 

 Edward IV 



Elizabeth (1465-1503). Queen 

 of Henry VII. The daughter of 

 Edward IV and Elizabeth Wood- 

 ville, she was 

 born at West- , 

 I minster, Feb. 

 I 11,1465. When 

 a girl, various 

 negotiations for 

 a husband were 

 carried on by 

 her father, mar- 

 riages with a 

 Elizabeth of York Nev ffl and the 

 Queen ot Henry VII dauphin of 



France, afterwards Charles VIII, 

 being arranged. She was, however, 

 unmarried when Edward died, in 

 1483, and after the murder of her 

 two young brothers in the Tower, 

 she, the eldest of five daughters, 

 was his heiress. She was then in 

 the power of Richard III, who con- 

 templated marrying her. Before 

 this time, the names of Elizabeth 

 and Henry Tudor bad been coupled, 

 and the princess, then in Yorkshire, 

 was probably in the plot that 

 culminated in the battle of Bos- 

 worth. She and Henry were 

 married, after Parliament had ap- 

 proved of the match, Jan. 18, 

 1486, the rival houses of York and 

 Lancaster being thus united. She 

 was crowned queen Nov. 25, 1487. 



Elizabeth had four children; 

 Arthur ; Henry, afterwards Henry 

 VIII ; Margaret, who became the 

 wife of James IV of Scotland ; and 

 Mary, afterwards the wife of Louis 

 XII of France; as well as three 

 who died in infancy. She died 

 Feb. 11, 1503, shortly after the 

 birth of the youngest. 



Elizabeth (1837-98). Empress 

 of Austria. Born Dec. 24, 1837. the 

 daughter of Maximilian I, king of 

 Bavaria, she 

 married Fran- 

 cis Joseph of 

 Austria, April I 

 24, 1854. Her < 

 attempts to f: ^ , 

 modify the I 

 strict etiquette 

 of the imperial 

 court aroused 

 opposition Elizabeth, 



amongst the Empress of Austna 

 nobility, but she soon gained the 

 love of the people and retained it 

 to the last. In 1877 she was 

 crowned queen of Hungary. In 

 1889 her only son, Rudolph, died 

 in very tragic circumstances ; her 

 cousin, Leopold of Bavaria, com- 

 mitted suicide, and her sister, 

 Sophie, duchess of Alen9on, was 

 killed in a fire at a Paris charity 

 bazaar, 1897. The empress herself 

 was mortally stabbed by an Italian 

 anarchist at Geneva, Sept. 10, 1898. 

 See Life, A. de Burgh, pseud., 1899. 



Elizabeth, 

 Queen of Bohemia 



After Mierewald 



ELIZABETH 



Elizabeth (1596-1662). Queen 

 of Bohemia. The eldest daughter 

 of James I, she was born at Falk- 

 land, Fife, Aug. 19, 1596. In 1612 

 she was betrothed to the elector 

 palatine Frederick V, whom she 

 married early in 1613, beginning 

 wedded life at Heidelberg, the 

 elector's capital. In 161 8 Frederick 

 was chosen king of Bohemia, and 

 the Thirty Years' War began. He 

 and his wife were crowned at 

 Prague in 1619 and lived there for 

 a time, but soon were fugitives, 

 the queen ultimately reaching 

 Holland, where Maurice of Orange 

 befriended her. 

 By this time 

 Frederick had 

 lost the pala- 

 tinate as well 

 as Bohemia, 

 and the exiled 

 pair remained 

 in Holland, 

 where in 1632 

 the elector 

 died. 



Elizabeth 



strove to obtain the lost 

 tinate for her eldest surviving 

 son, Charles Louis, and in 1648 

 had the satisfaction of seeing 

 him settled at Heidelberg. He did 

 nothing, however, to relieve the 

 considerable poverty to which she 

 was reduced by her husband's 

 misfortunes and the loss of her 

 own annuity as an English princess 

 after the civil war broke out. She 

 remained in Holland, befriended 

 by the earl of Craven, to whom 

 report, probably incorrectly, said 

 she was married, until 1661, when 

 she crossed over to England and 

 was given a pension by Charles II. 

 She was living in Leicester Square, 

 London, when she died, Feb. 13, 

 16u2. Elizabeth had thirteen chil- 

 dren ; two, Rupert and Maurice, 

 fought in the Civil War for their 

 uncle, Charles I, and the twelfth 

 was Sophia, the mother of George I. 

 See Life, M. A. E. Green, rev. ed. 

 S. C. Lomas, 1909. 



Elizabeth (1843-1916). Queen 

 of Rumania. Born at Neuwied, 

 Dec. 29, 1843, the daughter of 

 ^^^^^^^^ Prince Her- 

 I mann of Wied, 

 Wjfr^m in 1869 she 

 m 1 married King 



r : 4i|| ( then Prince) 

 ' ffiitiT^l Carol * R U ' 

 i mania. She 

 endeared her- 

 self to her ad- 

 opted country 

 by her minis- 

 trations to the 

 wounded in 

 the war with Turkey (1877-78), 

 and founded the order of Elizabeth 





