Elizabeth reacted by making ‘the intent’ to convert English subjects to Catholicism a treasonable offense, carrying the death penalty. Many priests were executed and a cult of martyrdom ensued. Elizabeth’s treatment of Catholic enemies in Ireland is said to have been particularly brutal and permanently affected Anglo-Irish relations. Eventually, after being shown proof of Mary Queen of Scot’s involvement in plots to assassinate her, Elizabeth signed her death warrant and she was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle on 8th February 1587.
Soon after Philip II, Queen Mary’s husband and claimant to the English throne, assembled the Spanish Armada, a navy of over 130 ships that intended to invade England, overthrow the Queen and re-establish Roman Catholicism as the state religion. After suffering dramatic losses on the coast of Ireland, the Spanish left, defeated.
Despite this success, England remained at war with Spain and was less successful in future costly campaigns. Elizabeth’s wars put a financial strain on the crown and the country, and left a huge deficit for her successor. The threat of invasion from Spain through Ireland and from France through Scotland was real and constant.
One of the Queens main allies in her ongoing sea battles with the Spanish was Francis Drake, whom she had knighted for his circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580. The exploratory work of Drake and his contemporaries Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert led to the establishment of the East India Company in 1600 and the beginning of a huge colonial empire that reached its peak in the Victorian Era.
However in the later years of Elizabeth’s reign, popular opinion of her fell. The standard of living of many of her subjects had dramatically declined thanks to the cost of ongoing wars, higher taxes and poor harvests. This economic recession coincided with a period of greater repression of Catholics in England. In 1592, Elizabeth authorized commissions that allowed her to spy on Catholic households and interrogate Catholic subjects at will.
Elizabeth died at Richmond Palace on 24th March 1603 of complications related to old age. The date of her accession became a national holiday, one that lasted over 200 years.