The life-size statue, carved from
stone, shows Queen Elizabeth in her robes. She is holding a sceptre and orb and
has a crown on her head.
The plaque, beneath the statue and
above the doorway, reads:
This statue
of
Queen Elizabeth
formerly stood on the west side of Ludgate.
That
gate being taken down in 1760 to open the street
was given by the City to
Sir Francis Gosling Knt.
Alderman of this ward who caused it to be placed
here.
At the base of the statue, just beneath
Elizabeth's feet is carved a year that appears to be '1586'.
The Spartacus Educational website [visit link]
tells us about Elizabeth:
"Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry
VIII and Anne Boleyn was born in 1533. While Henry was furious about having
another daughter, the supporters of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon were
delighted and claimed that it proved God was punishing Henry for his illegal
marriage to Anne.
In January 1536 Anne Boleyn had a
son. Unfortunately the child was born dead. Later that year Henry accused Anne
of committing adultery with five different men. Anne and the men were all
executed. Ten days later Henry married Jane Seymour.
Unlike her sister Mary, Elizabeth
was brought up in the Protestant faith. In 1549, during the reign of Edward VI,
she rejected the advances of Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of
England.
On Edward's death she sided with
her half-sister, Mary, against Lady Jane Grey. However, her Protestantism
aroused suspicions in her Catholic sister and she was imprisoned in the Tower of
London.
In 1558 Mary died and Elizabeth
became queen of England. Pope Paul IV was unhappy that a Protestant monarch was
once again in power. However, he suggested that if Elizabeth begged for his
permission to be queen he would consider the matter. When she refused, the Pope
excommunicated Elizabeth and ordered her subjects not to obey
her.
Elizabeth, with the help of her
chief minister, William Cecil, set about making England a Protestant nation.
Catholic bishops appointed by Mary Tudor were replaced by Protestant bishops,
and in 1559 Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity. Now everybody in England
had to attend Protestant church services.
The Catholic kings of France and
Spain were opposed to Elizabeth becoming queen of England. King Henry II of
France claimed that the true heir to the throne was Mary Stuart, the queen of
Scotland and the wife of his son, Francis.
After the death of her husband in
1560, Mary left France and went to Scotland to claim her throne. People in
Scotland who were Protestants were unhappy with having a Catholic queen.
However, with the support of France, Mary was able to hold on to
power.
Elizabeth believed that Mary posed
a threat to her throne. To counter this she suggested that her friend, Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, should marry Mary. Attempts were made to arrange this
but in 1565 Mary married Henry Darnley, the son of Lady Margaret Douglas, the
granddaughter of Henry VII. The marriage therefore strengthened her descendants'
claim to the English throne.
In 1566 Mary Stuart gave birth to a
son named James. The marriage was not a happy one and when Darnley was
mysteriously killed while recovering from smallpox at Glasgow in January 1567,
when the house in which he was in was blown up by gunpowder.
Suspicion fell on Mary and her
close friend, the Earl of Bothwell. When Mary married Bothwell two months later,
the Protestant lords rebelled against their queen. After her army was defeated
at Langside in 1567, Mary fled to England. Mary asked Elizabeth for protection
from her enemies in Scotland. However, Elizabeth was highly suspicious of the
woman who in the past had claimed she was the rightful queen of England.
Elizabeth feared that the arrival of Mary might encourage the Catholics in
England to rebel against her rule.
Elizabeth therefore decided to
imprison Mary. During the next nineteen years while Mary was in prison,
Elizabeth's officials discovered several Catholic plots that attempted to make
Mary queen of England.
Soon after Elizabeth became queen
of England, Protestants gained full control of Parliament. It now became very
important to Parliament that Elizabeth should marry and produce a Protestant
heir to the throne. Elizabeth had many favourites in her own court. At various
times rumours circulated that Elizabeth would marry men such as Robert Dudley,
Earl of Leicester, Sir Charles Hatton, and Thomas Howard, Duke of
Norfolk.
In October 1562 Elizabeth caught
smallpox. For a while, doctors thought that Elizabeth would die. This illness
made Parliament realise how dangerous the situation was. Therefore, after she
recovered, they asked her once again to consider marriage. Elizabeth replied
that she would think about it but she refused to make a
decision.
In 1566 members of Parliament tried
to force Elizabeth into action by discussing the subject in the House of Lords
and the House of Commons. Elizabeth was furious with Parliament for doing this.
She ordered thirty members from each House to attend a meeting at Whitehall
Palace. Elizabeth read out a long speech where she pointed out that whether she
got married or not was something that she would decide. She added that for
Parliament to decide this question was like "the feet directing the
head".
The members of Parliament at the
meeting agreed not to mention the issue again. However, some members were
unwilling to remain quiet on the subject. One politician, Peter Wentworth,
claimed that members of Parliament had the right to discuss any subject they
wanted. Elizabeth responded by ordering him to be sent to the Tower of
London.
In 1579 Elizabeth began having
talks about the possibility of marrying the Duke of Anjou from France. John
Stubbs wrote a pamphlet criticizing the proposed marriage. Stubbs objected to
the fact that the Duke of Anjou was a Catholic. He also argued that, at
forty-six, Elizabeth was too old to have children and so had no need to get
married.
Elizabeth held fewer Parliaments
than her father. On average, she held a Parliament once every four years.
Elizabeth made it clear that members of the House of Commons had complete
freedom of speech. However, she believed that certain issues such as religion or
foreign policy were best left to her and her Privy Council.
On thirty-six occasions Elizabeth
vetoed laws passed by Parliament. For example, in 1585 Parliament passed a bill
that banned hunting, cock-fighting and bear-baiting from taking place on Sunday.
Elizabeth believed that people had the right to enjoy themselves on their one
day of rest and refused to allow the bill to become law.
In 1586, the English government
uncovered the Babington Plot. The plan involved the murder of Elizabeth and an
invasion of England by Spanish troops. A letter was found that suggested Mary
was involved in the plot. Mary was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death.
For some time Elizabeth was unwilling to sign Mary's death warrant. Although
reluctant to do so, Elizabeth's ministers eventually persuaded her to agree to
Mary's execution.
After the death of his wife, Mary
Tudor, King Philip II of Spain asked Queen Elizabeth to be his bride. Philip was
upset when Elizabeth refused. He also became angry when Elizabeth did nothing to
stop English sea captains from robbing his ships bringing gold back from his
newly acquired territories in South America.
Elizabeth and Philip were also in
conflict over religion. Elizabeth disagreed with the way Philip persecuted
Protestants who lived under his control. Philip objected to the way Elizabeth
had forced English Catholics to attend Protestant church
services.
When Philip began persecuting
Protestants living in the Netherlands, Elizabeth sent English soldiers to help
protect them. In February 1587 Elizabeth agreed to the execution of Mary Stuart.
Philip had hoped that Mary would eventually become the Catholic queen of
England. Philip now decided to conquer England and bring an end to Elizabeth and
her Protestant government.
The invasion took a lot of
preparation and it was not until July 1588 that the 131 ships in the Spanish
Armada left for England. The large Spanish galleons were filled with 17,000
well-armed soldiers and 180 Catholic priests. The plan was to sail to Dunkirk in
France where the Armada would pick up another 16,000 Spanish
soldiers.
On 6 August the Armada anchored at
Calais Harbour. The English now filled eight old ships with materials that would
burn fiercely. At midnight, the fire-ships were lighted and left to sail by
themselves towards the Spanish ships in Calais Harbour. The plan worked and the
Spanish ships fled to the open sea.
With their formation broken, the
Spanish ships were easy targets for the English ships loaded with guns that
could fire very large cannon balls. The Spanish captains tried to get their
ships in close so that their soldiers could board the English ships. However,
the English ships were quicker than the Spanish galleons and were able to keep
their distance.
The English bombardment sank many
Spanish galleons. Those that survived headed north. The English ships did not
follow as they had run out of gunpowder. After the Armada rounded Scotland it
headed south for home. However, a strong gale drove many of the ships onto the
Irish rocks. Thousands of Spaniards drowned and even those that reached land
were often killed by English soldiers and settlers. Of the 25,000 men that had
set out in the Armada, less than 10,000 arrived home safely.
Philip II spent the next ten years
supporting a series of plots to overthrow Elizabeth. All these schemes ended in
failure and when Philip II died in 1598, Elizabeth was still queen of
England.
When Elizabeth died in March, 1603,
the Tudor dynasty came to an end and the throne was passed to James VI of
Scotland."