Queen Elizabeth
She was the 2nd daughter of the tempestuous Henry VIII. Her childhood was like any other princess’, that is if that included a princess having her father changing the nature of religious belief in England and the world by separating themselves from the Catholic religion. Having your mother beheaded with allegations of infidelity. To watch yourself time and time again be ostracized and then welcomed back to the arms of the court depending on the mood of the King and his counselors.
When her father died, again she found herself in and out of favor battered to and fro in the political variations of the court. In favor with the ascendency of her younger brother Edward then just as quickly out of favor with the paranoia of his Regent and counselors. With her sister Mary on the throne and England declared Catholic again, she again found herself dodging the headsman constantly accused with being at the head of every religious conflict in England.
With the death of her sister Mary, Queen Elizabeth inherited the crown of a divided and nearly destitute country. She was faced with the burden of not only restoring the treasury and reuniting the country, but ruling England in her own right. She has sidestepped her countrymen and the rest of the world’s monarchies pushing to get her to marry, including her sister’s widower, Philip II, King of Spain. Yet her desire to marry is blocked when the one man she can depend on the most, Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is surrounded by scandal and intrigue.
The Queen says that she is “Married to England,” and will never take a husband, yet she knows that there is no heir and this could send the country into civil war. She is seen as being weak woman, unfit to rule, which requires her to make hard choices that most kings would blanche at. She wants nothing more than to bring peace and prosperity to her people. She sees that her rule has been ordained by God and nothing will stop her from protecting her people, defying the world and keeping England safe and free from those that would conquer it or its Queen.
For now the Queen is on progress, she wants to move amongst her people, for a people to be ruled by a monarch that they cannot see is wrong to her. She wants nothing more than to wile away the day in dance and feasting and be among her subjects, but her rule never ends. She is constantly barraged with state business by her counselors, and her courtiers never stop their intrigues trying to gain. She would love to be like any other woman and simply enjoy a day, yet she is Queen and must find a way to balance the two.