Elizabeth I Was the fifth and final monarch of the Tudor dynasty, having succeeded her half-sister, Mary to the throne. She reigned during a period of turmoil in English history. A reign today referred as the Elizabethan Era or the Golden Age. It was marked by increases in English power and influence worldwide. It produced playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. Francis Drake became the first Englishman to circle the globe. Francis Bacon laid out his philosophical and political views and English colonization of North America took place under Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey Gilbert. The English colony in the new world, Virginia, was named in honor of the Queen. Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors, died at seventy years of age after a very successful forty-four year reign
