A pretty good article on power. The only part I disagree with is the the divine will/right of royalty which may or may not be passé now. A certain newly elected president is frugal and moves cautiously and strategizes like her!


Leaders & Success


Queen Elizabeth I Sparked England's Rise To Greatness

BY SCOTT S. SMITH, FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
01/05/2016 02:16 PM ET

Elizabeth Tudor didn't seem destined to become queen of England. Before she was 3, King Henry VIII beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, removing Elizabeth from the line of succession.

When her half-sister became Queen Mary I, Elizabeth was suspected of plotting a coup, imprisoned and nearly executed.

When Elizabeth was finally crowned at age 25 in 1558, she hardly faced rosy prospects.

Fighting between Catholics and Protestants jarred England, and the Catholic powers of Spain and France threatened it.

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"She had learned never to despair and to avoid acting rashly, to think through her options carefully," Susan Doran, author of "Elizabeth I and Her Circle," told IBD. "She had an excellent education, developed the ability to communicate brilliantly, surrounded herself with wise advisors, treated her courtiers well and rarely used her power arbitrarily."

Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People of All Time" called Elizabeth "a woman so strong, a politician so skillful, a monarch so magnetic that she ... brought her country safely through the Reformation, inspired a cultural renaissance and united a tiny, fragmented island into a nation of global reach."

Royal From The Start

Elizabeth (1533-1603) was born at Greenwich Palace, London, the presumptive heir to the throne, since her older half-sister, Mary, had lost that position when Henry had the marriage to her mother, Catherine of Aragon, annulled.
Elizabeth's Keys

Her 45-year reign as queen spurred England to greatness.
Overcame: Violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics.
Lesson: Major decisions are best made after careful consideration.
"Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested."

When Boleyn failed to produce a son, trumped-up charges of treason led to her execution, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate.

Henry then married Jane Seymour, who bore Edward in 1537.

Women of the nobility cared for Elizabeth, who received the type of training normally reserved for a prince, making her one of the best-educated women of the era by the time she was 17.

She proved to be a brilliant student with an astonishing memory, becoming fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Welsh, Scottish, Cornish and Irish.

In 1547, Henry died and his son, 9, became Edward VI.

When Edward died at 15, Elizabeth's half-sister became Mary I in 1553. A devout Catholic, Mary tried to crush the Protestant church that her father had established, executing 300 Protestants who resisted and earning the title Bloody Mary.

Elizabeth had been brought up Protestant and was arrested when a plot was discovered to put her on the throne, despite no evidence that she knew of it. In 1558, Mary died and Elizabeth was crowned, beginning a reign of 45 years.

"The composure with which she faced the challenges that awaited her was quite extraordinary," wrote Anne Somerset in "Elizabeth I." "Far from making her uncertain of herself, the vicissitudes she endured had revealed to her inner strengths and heightened her self-esteem, for she knew that it was largely owing to her intelligence and willpower that she had emerged unscathed from these ordeals. ... And because of the certainty that she owed her exaltation to the divine will, Elizabeth was untroubled by feelings of inadequacy on account of her sex. It was an attitude that enabled her to sidestep male prejudice and was hence an invaluable asset at a time when women were classed as inferior beings."

First, the queen tackled the religious tensions. She pushed through Parliament an act that made the Anglican Church the state's official church and ended the persecution of Catholics.

This move did not satisfy the more severe Protestants, like the Puritans.

Catholics were also dissatisfied and repeatedly tried to overthrow her, with the blessing of popes.

The greatest threat came from Mary Stuart, who became the Catholic queen of Scotland in 1542, when her father died shortly after her birth. She spent her childhood in France, a Scottish ally, while regents ruled until her return in 1561.

By then, the mostly Protestant Scottish lords had concluded a peace treaty with England. They rebelled against Mary Stuart's efforts to impose her faith.

She was imprisoned in 1567 and abdicated to her infant son, James, who was reared as a Protestant.

The next year, she escaped to England, where she was imprisoned for 19 years, when her involvement in a coup plot against Elizabeth caused her to be executed.

Sharp At The Top

Elizabeth's inner circle tried to pair her with suitors from countries that would provide a strong ally for tiny England.

She flirted but never consented, sometimes because she was in love with someone whom her advisors opposed or because remaining available was smart foreign policy.

Late in her reign, she spoke of being married to her kingdom.

"Elizabeth was an excellent speaker and deployed the rhetoric she had learned from her classical education, often silencing her critics in Parliament," said Doran. "She surrounded herself by and large by wise advisors, such as William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

"She improved the economy by reforming the currency, nurturing trade and spending prudently, avoiding excessive spending on palaces, unlike her father, or on patronage, unlike her successor."

Elizabeth even opened trade with the Muslim states of Morocco and the Ottoman Empire.

She refilled the empty treasury from the government's stake in seven privately operated companies. Loot also filled her coffers from explorer-privateers such as Francis Drake, who circumnavigated the globe in 1577-80, raiding England's enemies.

And she made great expenditures to build up the weak English navy so it could fight the Spanish Armada, which arrived in the English Channel at the end of July 1588.

The Spanish fleet had 22 galleons and 108 armed merchant ships with a total of 2,500 guns, manned by 8,000 sailors and 18,000 soldiers for boarding English vessels that might oppose them.

The English had twice as many ships, which were smaller and had only two-thirds as many cannons, but were able to maneuver faster.

On Aug. 8, the English fleet repeatedly attacked and quickly retreated, sinking five enemy boats and losing none. Just 100 English sailors died and 400 were wounded; 600 Spaniards were killed, 800 wounded and 400 captured.

Spain's Reign Sank

The Spanish had been driven north and decided to return home by going around Ireland into the North Atlantic to avoid further attacks. Gales destroyed many ships. Only 67 vessels made it back, with fewer than 10,000 men.

Spain would hold its global dominance for a century, then fade as Britain and France fought to replace it.

"Elizabeth did not seek military glory, nor was she interested in building a large empire," wrote Michael Hart in "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History." "Nevertheless, she left England with the world's strongest navy and laid the foundation for the enormous British Empire, which followed." He puts her at No. 94 as a mover and shaker in world history, just ahead of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Elizabeth's attempts to put down rebellions in Catholic Ireland and to support the Protestant King Henry IV of France were less successful. Incompetent commanders hurt her, and she didn't want to risk major investments.

"Elizabeth did not attempt to deal directly with the vexing problem of the relative authority of Parliament and the monarch," wrote Hart. "But by simply avoiding being a despot, she probably did more to aid the development of British democracy than if she had promulgated a democratic constitution."

Elizabeth's reign is also seen as a golden age of literature, with her encouragement of playwrights and poets such as William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Edward de Vere and Christopher Marlowe.

On her deathbed at 69, Elizabeth finally named Mary Stuart's son, James VI of Scotland, her successor. He simultaneously ruled England as James I.

According to Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success," Elizabeth's net worth would be $142.9 billion in current money (outranking Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) founder Sam Walton).

http://news.investors.com/management-leaders-and-success/010516-788142-queen-elizabeth-fostered-england-renaissance.htm?src=3MC788142&p=full

Elizabeth 1 truly was a great and exceptionary leader.