On this day in 1559, Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Elizabeth, First of That Name, of England. She would preside over what was perhaps England's first Golden Age, an unprecedented flourishing in arts and letters in England.
She also presided over a massacre. Her immediate predecessor, Mary I, better known today as 'Bloody Mary' was so hated and reviled that the anniversary of her death was a public holiday in England for centuries. Mary gained her reputation from her efforts to restore the Catholic Faith in England, which had lead to the execution of some 800 people. Elizabeth brought back the Anglicanism of her father (who executed some 30-40,000 in his efforts to establish his own church and his own dynasty) and executed some 15,000 in her time and efforts. Yet Mary was the bloody one. It just goes to show- you can make the streets run with blood and the people will love you for it- as long as it's the right sort of blood.
The dynasty Henry fought and slaughtered so hard to create ended with his daughter, luckily enough for England. It is hard to say how much longer England could have survived under the grey massacres of the Bloody Tudors.
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