Image via Wikipedia

Such went the [kind-of confusing] traditional way of announcing that the former monarch had kicked it, making way for a new era with a new gal on the throne. And so it was on the 17th of November in 1558 when Mary I lost her battle with something that is assumed to have been a stomach tumor, and her half-sister Elizabeth grabbed the reins for what would be the next 45 years.

At that time, she was a tall and slim 25-year-old girl, lounging under an oak tree at Hatfield House, where she’d been living. The royal courtiers arrived from London on their horses to give her the news that she was now the queen. She responded in Latin (why? Because she could!), quoting the 118th Psalm, ”It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” Humble and yet commanding from the very beginning.

Our ginger queen was formally crowned at Westminster Abbey on this date, January 15, in 1559. Why on this specific date? She’d consulted an astrologer, who advised her that her reign would be “glorious and prosperous” should her ceremony take place on the 15th of January. Looks like there’s something to those stars after all, doesn’t it?

Anyway, Elizabeth wanted her coronation ceremony to be an over-the-top affair, as grand as possible, to bang it into the people’s heads that she really was the legitimate queen. Because if you think about it, it was a miracle that she became queen at all. Her own father wasn’t even supposed to be king; he only stepped in when his older brother Arthur died. Her half-brother Edward (king for six years) died as a teenager, then poor Lady Jane Grey (queen for nine days) lost her head over her shaky claim to the throne, and finally there had been Mary, queen for five years.

But on that snow-covered January day, the woman who was arguably England’s greatest monarch donned an awesome gold and crimson velvet number, trimmed in ermine, and accepted her crown. Long lived the queen indeed.