1533-1603

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Although Ireland was one of her two kingdoms, Elizabeth faced a hostile, and in places virtually autonomous, Irish population that adhered to Catholicism and was willing to defy her authority and plot with her enemies. Her policy there was to grant land to her courtiers and prevent the rebels from giving Spain a base from which to attack England. In the course of a series of uprisings, Crown forces pursued scorched-earth tactics and during a revolt in Munster led by Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, in 1582, an estimated 30,000 Irish people starved to death. Elizabeth advised her commanders that the Irish, "that rude and barbarous nation", be well treated, but neither she nor her commanders showed any remorse when force and bloodshed served their authoritarian purpose.