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Educated at St John's College, where he was made a Fellow in 1520. MA, 1521; BTh, 1531. Senior Bursar at St John's, 1535-1539. Held a benefice in the Diocese of Lincoln. Appointed as Headmaster of Shrewsbury School, 1561-1571. Under his headship, the school was attended by an increased number of sons of the nobility, with pupils from as far away as Buckinghamshire. Philip Sidney was a pupil there during his tenure. On retiring from Shrewsbury, entered the service of Walter Devereux, later 1st Earl of Essex, overseeing Devereux's affairs while he was away and acting as tutor to his son. He also worked for the Crown and was twice sent to Ireland: in 1574 to persuade the Essex to make peace with Turlough Luineach O'Neill, lord of Tír Eoghain, and in 1575 to communicate the Queen's desire that Essex halt his attempts to subdue part of the province of Ulster. After Essex's death in 1576 and the settlement of his affairs, Ashton concentrated on securing the adoption of the ordinances he had written for governing Shrewsbury School, which succeeded in August 1578. He died in Cambridge on 28 August 1578.

Vicar of the Church of the Lady Margaret, Walworth, c 1930-1940.

Chamberlain to Lady Margaret Beaufort after 1504 and an executor of her will.

Illegitimate son of Henry Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, and Joan Hill. He spent his childhood in exile and came to England with Henry Tudor in 1485, who knighted him on 7 August 1485. He stopped using the surname Beaufort and took that of Somerset instead. He married Henry VII's ward, Elizabeth Herbert, the sole heir of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, in 1492. Through his wife he acquired substantial lands in Wales. He administered the marcher lordship of Glamorgan for the Crown and was awarded more lands and titles, making him the most powerful man in south Wales. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1496. In 1501 he was made Vice-Chamberlain of Henry VII's household. In 1504 he was created Baron Herbert. In 1509 Henry VIII made him Lord Chamberlain, head of the royal household. Both monarchs employed him on international military and diplomatic missions. He was created Earl of Worcester in 1514 and in the period 1518-1520 conducted negotiations with France, culminating in the Field of the Cloth of Gold, for the organisation of which he was mostly responsible. He died on 25 April 1526 and was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor.

Born to Richard and Agnes Metcalfe of Askrigg, North Yorkshire, Nicholas Metcalfe studied at Cambridge (possibly at Michaelhouse) and graduated BA in 1495, MA in 1498, BTh in 1504, and DTh in 1507. He was released from lecturing duties in 1507 in order to conduct business on behalf of John Fisher, then Chancellor of England.

In 1512, Metcalfe became archdeacon of Rochester, one of many ecclesiastical positions he was to hold throughout his life. Other notable appointments include Rector of Henley, Oxfordshire (1510-1521); Rector of Woodham Ferrers, Essex (1517-1539); vicar of Southfleet, Kent (1531-1537); and canon and prebendary of Lincoln (1526-1539).

Metcalfe served as Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge from 1518 to 1537, following the resignation of his predecessor, Alan Percy. Working alongside John Fisher, Metcalfe greatly enhanced the College’s foundation during the course of his mastership, securing, for instance, properties such as Broomhall Priory in Berkshire and Higham Priory in Kent and acquiring a number of benefactions to support the fellows and scholars of the College. He was executor to Lady Margaret Beaufort.

Like Fisher, Metcalfe opposed the divorce of Henry VIII from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in 1533. However, his religious views and proximity to Fisher meant that, following Fisher’s execution in 1535, Metcalfe was subject to suspicion and was eventually summoned to London, where he testified to Thomas Cromwell. In 1537, he was compelled to resign his mastership. He died two years later in 1539 and was buried at Woodham Ferrers.

Sir Christopher Wren was born on 20th October 1623 in East Knoyle, Wiltshire. He was educated at home by both his father and a private tutor. The details of his schooling are not well-known, but he learned both to draw and to read Latin. Wren then entered Wadham College, Oxford, in June of 1650. He graduated BA the following year, and MA in 1653. In the same year, he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls College, but also spent much time in London. Wren continued to pursue his interests in invention and scientific research. In 1657, he was appointed to the chair of astronomy at Gresham College in the City of London. His inaugural lecture at the College survives in both Latin and English. In 1664, he was incorporated MA at Cambridge.

Wren is probably most famous for his contributions to the field of architecture. After the Reformation, his association with the Royal Society brought him to the attention of King Charles II, and he came to give unofficial advice on the restoration of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1661. Wren had mastered the art of architecture by the early 1660’s. His study of architecture led him to travel to France between 1665 and 1666, incidentally avoiding most of the Great Plague of London. Wren’s architectural projects included the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, a series of chapel screens in various Colleges, and the new chapel and cloister range at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. However, he is most famous for rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London. He helped guide the regulations for building in London which followed the city’s recovery from the fire.

Wren married twice, both times briefly, and had two children with each of his wives. He died on the 25th February 1723, and was buried in the crypt at St Paul’s.

Charles II was born on the 29th of May 1630, at St James’s Palace. He was the second son of Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but the first to survive. When the English Civil War broke out in 1642, Charles spent most of the conflict with his father until he was sent to the west country to lead the royalist forces. When King Charles surrendered to the Scots, the prince went to his mother in France. His father was executed in January of 1649, and Charles ascended to the throne of Scotland, where he reigned until 1651. He was then exiled again to France.

With the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles returned to England and to the throne. He married Catherine of Braganza, the Portugeuse infanta. The couple had no children, but Charles himself had many children by various mistresses. With no legitimate heir, when Charles died on the 6th February 1685, he was succeeded to the throne by his brother, James II.

John Drayton Wyatt was an architect who was born in 1820. He began working for Sir George Gilbert Scott, who designed the chapel at St John’s College, in 1841 as an assistant draughtsman. During his career, he contributed drawings to the Civil Engineer and Architects Journal, worked on the restoration of Sudeley Castle, and eventually became the diocesan architect for Bath and Wells. He died in 1891.

Percival Edmund Gatty, usually known as Edmund Percival Gatty, was born on the 22nd June 1886 to Frederick Albert Gatty, a manufacturing chemist. He was educated at Orley Farm, before going on to Chichester Theological College. He recieved his B.A. in 1889, and was ordained priest in 1892. He held curacies in Brighton, Yorkshire, Bedfordshire and Leicestershire. In 1900 he became the vicar of Offley, Hertfordshire, and remained there until his retirement in 1925.

Gatty was an avid water-colour painter, and published the book A History of Offley and its Church in 1907. During the First World War, he was an ambulance driver with the French Army.

Gatty married Alice Mabel Wellwood Ker in 1899. They had one daughter, and one son: Hugh Percival Wharton Gatty, who went on to become a Fellow and Librarian of St John’s College. He died on the 30th December 1937.

Son of John Brackenbury of Sellaby near Barnard Castle, County Durham. Went to school at Guisborough, Yorkshire. Admitted to St John's as a pensioner, 1650, aged 16. Graduated BA, 1654/5; MA, 1658. A Fellow of St John's from 1656 until his death. He was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1656 and was licensed to practise medicine in 1662, graduating MD in 1665. His brothers Robert and Henry were also students at St John's. Pierce Brackenbury died in 1692.

Pierce Brackenbury (c. 1632-1692), Fellow of St John's, and descendants. They held lands of St John's in Deeping St James, Lincolnshire, and Marton-cum-Grafton, Yorkshire.

Gertrude Hayes was born in London on the 23rd of November 1872. She was educated at the Royal College of Art. During the course of her artistic career she exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy, and some of her works now reside in permanent collections across various museums including South Kensington, Liverpool and Los Angeles. She was a member of the Coventry and Warwickshire Society of Artists, and also spent a four year stint as Assistant Art Mistress of Rugby School from 1915-1919.

Hayes married twice, first to Alfred Kedington Moran, the Art Master of Rugby School. After his death in 1928, she remarried Edwin M. Betts, a former Art Master at Nottingham High School. She enjoyed travelling, motoring, and gardening, and died in 1956.

Professor Richard Perham was born on the 27th of April 1937, in Middlesex. He secured a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, where he sat A-Levels in Pure and Applied Maths, Physics and Chemistry, as well as the entrance exam for Cambridge. He was the first in his family to go to university, but before coming to St John’s he undertook his national service in the Royal Navy.

As an undergraduate, Perham studied Natural Sciences with a specialisation in biochemistry, graduating in 1958. While studying for his PhD (1961), Perham and his supervisor Dr Ieuan Harris identified a key cysteine residue required for protein activity-- this was far from his only contribution to the field of science. In 1965, Perham was appointed Demonstrator in the Department of Biochemistry, and was also awarded a Fellowship to study at Yale University’s Department of Molecular Biophysics, where he met his future wife.

Perham’s achievements were many. He was known for his work on the chemistry of proteins and giant protein complexes, including the introduction of important techniques in the chemical modification of proteins, among numerous other fields. He held positions on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine and the Scientific Advistory Committee, among others, and spearheaded a transformation of the European Journal of Biochemistry as its Editor-in-Chief. He was a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a winner of the Max Planck Prize and Novartis Medal of the Biochemical Society. He was an author on more than 350 scientific papers.

Within Cambridge, Perham was made a Research Fellow of St John’s College in 1964, going on to become Director of Studies in Biochemistry, Biology of Cells and Genetics, and finally University Professor of Biochemistry in 1989. He was also a Tutor in College from 1967 to 1977, and participated in the May Ball Committee and the Lady Margaret Boat Club. He was President of College for four years beginning in 1983, and was elected Master of College in 2004.

Perham married Dr. Nancy Lane in 1969. They had two children, Temple and Quentin, and two grandchildren. He was a keen gardener, photographer and musician, interested in theatre, antiques and opera. He died on the 14th of February 2015, aged seventy-seven.

Born in Berwick upon Tweed, reputedly the illegitimate son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, Governor of Berwick from 1568. Matriculated as sizar from Christ's College, Cambridge, 1585; graduated BA 1589; made fellow of St John's 1591; proceeded MA 1592. Transferred to Christ's, 1597; proceeded BD 1599; resigned his fellowship 1600. Married Dorothy Coke, sister of John Coke (secretary of state from 1625) and George Coke, a contemporary of Carey's at St John's and later Bishop of Hereford. He was made a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral in 1601 and acquired a number of ecclesiastical offices over the next few years, including archdeacon of Shropshire from 1606 (resigned 1613) and prebendary of Lincoln from 1607. In 1610 he was appointed to the rectory of Toft, Cambridgeshire, at the instigation of Owen Gwyn, Bursar (later Master) of St John's. In 1610 he was also made Master of Christ's College, appointed by King James I. In 1612 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University. In 1614 he was made Dean of St Paul's. He was nominated as Bishop of Exeter by Owen Gwyn's cousin, John Williams, lord keeper and Bishop of Lincoln, and appointed to the post in 1621.

Simpson was a student at St. John’s College, matriculating in 1971. He was a contemporary and friend of Douglas Adams. Adams and Simpson shared rooms along with Nick Barton in Adams’ third year. The character of Zaphod Beeblebrox from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' was based, according to Adams' own account on Simpson.

Hawksmoor was an English architect whose importance lies in his representation of the English Baroque style. He was probably born in early 1662. It is not known where he received his schooling but it has been suggested it could have been at the grammar school in Dunham, Nottinghamshire. At 18 he left home to work as a clerk for architect Sir Christopher Wren. His first official post was as Deputy Surveyor to Wren at Winchester Palace from 1683 until 1685. Hawksmoor worked with Wren on all his major architectural projects, including Chelsea Hospital (1681 -1692), St. Paul's Cathedral (completed 1710), Hampton Court Palace (1689-1700), and Greenwich Hospital (1699-1702). By 1688 he was designing buildings, and by about 1690 executing them, both under Wren's continued direction and on independent commissions. In 1689 he was named Clerk of the Works at Kensington Palace, and in 1705 Deputy Surveyor of Works at Greenwich. On Wren’s death (1723), Hawksmoor became surveyor general of Westminster Abbey, the west towers of which were built (1734–45) to his design. Hawksmoor also worked with architect Sir John Vanbrugh. He was involved in the building of Blenheim Palace (1705–25) in Oxfordshire for John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Castle Howard (1699–1726) in Yorkshire for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle. John Vanbrugh made Hawksmoor his deputy as Comptroller of the Works in 1721. Hawksmoor also took on commissions on his own and it is mainly for these that he is most well-known. In 1702, he designed the baroque country house of Easton Neston (1695-1710) in Northamptonshire for Sir William Fermor. In 1713 he was commissioned to complete King's College, Cambridge but Hawksmoor's scheme was never executed. He conceived grand rebuilding schemes for central Oxford, most of which were not realised. However, he designed and completed the Clarendon Building at Oxford (1711-1715); the Codrington Library and new buildings at All Souls College, Oxford (1716-34); parts of Worcester College, Oxford with Sir George Clarke in 1720 and the High Street entrance gate at The Queen's College, Oxford (1733-36). In 1711 Hawksmoor was appointed one of two surveyors to a commission to build 50 new churches in the Cities of London and Westminster and their immediate environs. In this capacity he designed and completed the six churches for which he is most well known: St. Anne’s (1714–24; consecrated in 1730) in Limehouse, St. George-in-the-East (1714–29) in Wapping Stepney, Christ Church (1714–29) in Spitalfields; St. Mary Woolnoth (1716–24) in the City of London; St. Alphege’s (1712-1718) in Greenwich and St. George’s (1716-1731) in Bloomsbury. Hawksmoor died on 25 March 1736 in his house at Millbank, London.

King of Britain and Ireland whose authoritarian rule and quarrels with Parliament provoked a civil war that led to his execution.
Charles I was born in Dunfermline Castle, Scotland, on 19 November 1600. He was the third child of James VI of Scotland (subsequently James I of England; 1566–1625) and his Danish wife, Anne (1574–1619), having been preceded by Henry (1594–1612) and Elizabeth (1596–1662). He was created duke of Albany at his baptism and duke of York in 1605. In Scotland he was placed in the care of Lord and Lady Fyvie, who brought him up until the age of four; he then moved to England and the household of Sir Robert and Lady Carey. Thomas Murray, a Scottish presbyterian who later became provost of Eton, oversaw his education. After his brother Henry's death in 1612 he became the sole male heir to the kingdoms of Britain and Ireland.
From the age of twelve Charles was brought up to be a king and he was gradually instructed in every aspect of rule by his father. On 3 November 1616 he was created prince of Wales. He was made a member of the privy council and sat on the naval commission.
In 1623, before succeeding to the throne, Charles made an incognito visit to Spain in order to conclude a marriage treaty with the daughter of King Philip III. When the mission failed, he pressed his father for war against Spain. In the meantime a marriage treaty was arranged with Henrietta Maria, sister of the French king, Louis XIII.
In March 1625, Charles I became king and married Henrietta Maria soon afterward. The Spanish war was proving a failure and Charles offered Parliament no explanations of his foreign policy or its costs. Problems soon arose between the new king and the Commons, and Parliament refused to vote him the right to levy tonnage and poundage (customs duties) though this right had been granted to previous monarchs for life.
The country then became involved in a war with France as well as with Spain and, in desperate need of funds, the king imposed a forced loan, which his judges declared illegal. He then dismissed the chief justice and ordered the arrest of more than 70 knights and gentlemen who refused to contribute.
By the time Charles’s third Parliament met (March 1628), the king’s government was thoroughly discredited. The House of Commons set out its complaints in the Petition of Right. By the time the fourth Parliament met in January 1629, the king’s chief advisor Lord Buckingham had been assassinated. During that parliament the speaker was held down in his chair and three resolutions were passed condemning the king’s conduct. Charles realized that such behaviour was revolutionary. For the next 11 years he ruled his kingdom without calling a Parliament.
In order that he might no longer be dependent upon parliamentary grants, he now made peace with both France and Spain. But in 1639 Charles became involved in a war against the Scots.
Charles summoned a Parliament that met in April 1640—later known as the Short Parliament—in order to raise money for the war against Scotland. The House insisted first on discussing grievances against the government and showed itself opposed to a renewal of the war; so, on May 5, the king dissolved Parliament again. A Scottish army crossed the border in August and the king’s troops panicked before a cannonade at Newburn. Charles summoned another Parliament, the Long Parliament, which met at Westminster in November 1640.
Charles was then forced to agree to a measure whereby the existing Parliament could not be dissolved without its own consent. On November 22, 1641, the Commons passed by 159 to 148 votes the Grand Remonstrance to the king, setting out all that had gone wrong since his accession.
In April the king settled in York, where he ordered the courts of justice to assemble and where royalist members of both houses gradually joined him. In June the majority of the members remaining in London sent the king the Nineteen Propositions, which included demands that no ministers should be appointed without parliamentary approval, that the army should be put under parliamentary control, and that Parliament should decide about the future of the church.
But in July both sides were urgently making ready for war. The king formally raised the royal standard at Nottingham on August 22 and sporadic fighting soon broke out all over the kingdom. Charles moved his court and military headquarters to Christ Church College, Oxford. On June 14 1645 the highly disciplined New Model Army organised and commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax with Oliver Cromwell as his second in command, defeated the king at the Battle of Naseby. By the spring of 1646 Oxford was surrounded. Charles left the city in disguise. In June, however, he was seized and taken to the army headquarters at Newmarket and then to Hampton Court. He escaped on November 11, but his friends’ plans to take him to Jersey and thence to France went astray and instead Charles found himself in the Isle of Wight, where the governor was loyal to Parliament and kept him under surveillance at Carisbrooke Castle.
In August 1648 the last of Charles’s Scottish supporters were defeated at the Battle of Preston and the second Civil War ended. The army now began to demand that the king should be put on trial for treason. On January 20, 1649, he was brought before a specially constituted high court of justice in Westminster Hall.
Charles I was charged with high treason and “other high crimes against the realm of England.” He at once refused to recognise the legality of the court because “a king cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction on earth.” He therefore refused to plead but maintained that he stood for “the liberty of the people of England.” The sentence of death was read on January 27; his execution was ordered as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy. The sentence was carried out in Whitehall on the morning of January 30, 1649. A week later he was buried at Windsor. Charles had nine children, two of whom eventually succeeded as king (Charles II and James II), and two of whom died at or shortly after birth.

Robert Devereux was an English soldier and courtier famous for his charm and his position as royal favourite in the court of Elizabeth I. He was born on 10th November 1565 to Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex, and Lettice Knollys. He inherited the title of Earl of Essex after his father died when he was nine. His earliest known teacher was Thomas Ashton, headmaster of Shrewsbury School, fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and a trusted family servant. Ashton was succeeded as Devereux's 'scolemaster' by Robert Wright, who was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Robert Devereux himself was admitted as a fellow-commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1577 and in 1581 he graduated as a Master of Arts. In 1578 Essex's mother married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, favourite of Elizabeth I. Young Essex first attained military prominence by fighting bravely under his stepfather as a Governor-General against the Spanish in the Netherlands in 1586. Shortly before his death in 1588, the Earl of Leicester introduced Devereux to the Elizabethan court. Elizabeth gave him the position of Master of the Horse and he became a favourite of the queen, becoming a privy councillor in 1593. He took part in the English operation against Lisbon in 1589 and secretly married Frances Walsingham, widow of the poet Sir Philip Sidney, in 1590. They went on to have three children (Robert, Dorothy and Frances) who survived into adulthood. In 1591-2 he commanded an English force sent to assist the Protestant Henry of Navarre in France. Essex became a national hero in 1596 when he shared command of the expedition that captured Cadiz from the Spanish. The following year, he failed in an expedition to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet off the Azores. Thanks to various contacts at Cambridge, such as William Whitaker, Essex had a very high reputation at the universities and was a regular recruiter of promising students and dons. In 1598 he was chosen to replace Lord Burghley as chancellor of Cambridge University. In 1599, at his own request, Essex was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and sent to put down a rebellion by the earl of Tyrone. After an unsuccessful campaign Essex concluded an unauthorised truce with Tyrone and then returned to England to try and explain his conduct to the queen. She deprived him of his offices and placed him under house arrest in 1600. Politically and financially ruined, Essex attempted, with 200-300 followers, to raise the people of London in revolt against the government in 1601. The poorly planned attempt failed, and Essex surrendered. He was executed at the Tower of London on 25th February 1601 after being found guilty of treason.

William Thomas (Bill) Thurbon began working in the College in 1920 as a clerk under Ned Lockhart, chief clerk and college butler. Thurbon became the bursary assistant in 1931 and bursar’s clerk from 1955 to 1970. For another twenty years Bill assisted in organizing the records of the College. Bill Thurbon began working in the College in 1920 and was Bursar’s Clerk from 1955 to 1970. For another twenty years Bill assisted in organizing the records of the College. He was married to Alice Zillah Thurbon.

Queen of England (1558–1603) during a period, often called the Elizabethan Age, when England asserted itself as a major European power in politics, commerce, and the arts.
Elizabeth was born on 7 September 1533 at Greenwich Palace, the only child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
She was proclaimed to be heiress presumptive to the throne, displacing her seventeen-year-old half-sister Mary (1516–1558), now deemed illegitimate.
Elizabeth received the rigorous education normally reserved for male heirs, consisting of a course of studies centring on classical languages, history, rhetoric, and moral philosophy. Elizabeth's education came through her tutor William Grindal, a favourite pupil of the greatest educationist of the age, Roger Ascham, who had himself been taught by John Cheke, now tutor to Prince Edward. These men were all products of St John's College, Cambridge, which was a leading centre of humanist erudition. As queen, Elizabeth appointed as her secretary and leading counsellor William Cecil, whose mind and rhetorical skills, the essence of his statesmanship, had been formed at the same Cambridge college.
Mary's accession on 19 July 1553 soon proved bad news for Elizabeth. Mary made a decision to marry her Spanish cousin, Philip of Spain. It was an unpopular choice, and by late January 1554 provoked a rebellion led by Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger. It was in her name that Wyatt rebelled and Elizabeth was taken to the Tower and only narrowly escaped execution. Two months later, she was released from the Tower and placed in close custody for a year at Woodstock.
From 1555, when Mary's health began to break down and on 6 November 1558 Mary acknowledged Elizabeth as her heir. After the death of Mary on November 17, 1558, Elizabeth came to the throne. Her great coronation procession was a masterpiece of political courtship. As queen, Elizabeth reduced the size of the Privy Council and restructured the royal household. She carefully balanced the need for substantial administrative and judicial continuity with the desire for change; and she assembled a core of experienced and trustworthy advisers, including William Cecil, Nicholas Bacon, Francis Walsingham, and Nicholas Throckmorton.
Through the 1559 Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity she began to restore England to Protestantism. Elizabeth’s government moved cautiously but steadily to transfer these structural and liturgical reforms from the statute books to the local parishes throughout the kingdom. Her religious settlement was under threat throughout her reign from both Protestant dissidents and from English Catholics. The Catholic threat took the form of a number of plots against her life, the most serious of which were in 1569, 1571 and 1586. Both earlier threats were linked at least indirectly to Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been driven from her own kingdom in 1568 and had taken refuge in England. However, In the Babington plot of 1586 Mary’s involvement was clearly proved and she was tried and sentenced to death. She was executed in 1588.
Elizabeth never married and many scholars think it unlikely that Elizabeth ever seriously intended to marry, for the dangers always outweighed the possible benefits, but she skilfully played one off against another and kept the marriage negotiations going for months, even years.
She also cannily played a complex diplomatic game with the rival interests of France and Spain. State-sanctioned raids, led by Sir Francis Drake and others, on Spanish shipping and ports alternated with conciliatory gestures and peace talks. But by the mid-1580s it became clear that England could not avoid a direct military confrontation with Spain. Word reached London that the Spanish king, Philip II, had begun to assemble an enormous fleet that would sail to the Netherlands, join forces with a waiting Spanish army led by the duke of Parma, and then proceed to an invasion and conquest of Protestant England. When in July 1588 the Invincible Armada reached English waters, the queen’s ships, in one of the most famous naval encounters of history, defeated the enemy fleet.
In the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign, her control over her country’s political, religious, and economic forces and over her representation of herself began to show severe strains. Bad harvests, persistent inflation, and unemployment caused hardship and a loss of public morale. Charges of corruption and greed led to widespread popular hatred of many of the queen’s favourites to whom she had given lucrative and much-resented monopolies. A series of disastrous military attempts to subjugate the Irish culminated in a crisis of authority with her last great favourite, Robert Devereux, when he returned from Ireland against the queen’s orders and then made an attempt to raise an insurrection. He was tried for treason and executed on February 25, 1601.
By 1603 Elizabeth was suffering from a chronic melancholy. She was refusing food and unable to sleep, not even going to bed, and not speaking much. In this condition she died a slow death, succumbing to bronchitis and, perhaps, pneumonia on 24 March 1603 at Richmond Palace, Surrey. The throne was handed to James I whose path of succession was smoothed by Cecil, but it is not known for certain whether Elizabeth actually named James as her successor. Elizabeth's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 28 April.