Forget pink and prissy. Kate Beaton picks her favourite princesses you wouldn’t want to mess with
Elizabeth is probably England’s greatest princess. She overcame odds that were decidedly stacked against her by the time she made it to the throne, and by the time she left it, her country was in a golden age. Elizabeth was a girl in the turbulent years following the death of Henry VIII, third in line to the crown but widely considered to be illegitimate. She survived the rule of her father, her brother, and her sister, none of whom wished her to succeed them, and took the throne at the age of 25. Elizabeth sought to end the religious strife that had torn her country apart. When it came time to marry, she could not do it, understanding that any marriage could be a threat to her position. Instead, she styled herself as the Virgin Queen, a queen married and dedicated to her people and country alone. Elizabeth’s reign is marked by a flourishing of the arts and voyages of discovery, and one can hardly picture her without an accompanying image of Shakespeare or Walter Raleigh. But throughout her rule, she was still faced with danger and uncertainty, with threats from the outside coming in forms such as the Spanish Armada or her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth handled them all, from a magnificent appearance at Tilbury and the defeat of the Armada to the more fraught occasion of executing Mary. The image of Elizabeth’s rule is still one of triumph and glory. She is, after all, Gloriana.
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