Elizabeth I Is Crowned Queen of England

On 15 January 1559, Elizabeth I was crowned at Westminster Abbey by Dr Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle. The usual officiant, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had died; the See stood vacant, and the Archbishop of York refused to serve a Protestant-leaning queen.

Elizabeth was 25, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, who had been executed when Elizabeth was a toddler. She succeeded her half-sister Mary I, who had died in November 1558. Reportedly on the advice of her astrologer John Dee, the coronation date was chosen for its favourable alignment of the stars.

The latter half of the 16th century in England is justly called the Elizabethan Age.

Her 45-year reign (1558–1603) became one of the most celebrated in English history, coinciding with the flowering of the English Renaissance and writers such as Shakespeare. Under Elizabeth, England asserted itself as a major European power in politics, commerce, and the arts.