Queen Elizabeth I

Abstract

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603. Her tutors included the humanist scholar Roger Ascham, with whom she studied Latin and Greek; as a child she spoke and composed in these languages, and in French and Italian; she later added Spanish to her linguistic arsenal. As an adult she continued to write poetry; she also translated Boethius, Horace and Plutarch. Only a handful of her poems survives, and some of these are of doubtful authenticity.