reviewing their feats, i can safely say that the only thing extraordinary they did was ruling for many years, which is quite impressive in its own right, i'll give them that. but other than this, i find them quite underwhelming. elizabeth I is the one that did best, she turned a fractured nation into an emergent naval power, but that still can't mask the underwhelming performances against the spanish and the irish and never managed to stop france from becoming the most powerful nation for the next 300 years. victoria hardly ruled at all after the death of his husband, and was too busy getting fat and crying at his altar while the empire bloated to a fourth of the globe surface, while the average joe lived a life of hardly imaginable misery and london itself became an unlivable dump. as for elizabeth II, she was a glorified wax statue and did a really good job as a figurehead for mugs and plates to sell at souvenir shops. all in all, i find all of them extremely overrated monarchs.
>>18546786I think Victoria and Elizabeth II are overhyped, but Elizabeth I genuinely did a good job. Being a woman, it’s not like she could personally supervise battles like her father, but she was very good in other ways. England wasn’t just a fractured country, but it was besieged by enemies and in a tough diplomatic situation. A lesser person would have bumbled into a trap, lost their throne, and had the country invaded by a Catholic power. England was quite weak compared to France and Spain too. Elizabeth I’s genius came in how she not only navigated internal politics but also international politics. Scotland is the best example of a win: she managed to work with the Protestant Scots to squeeze out French and Catholic influence without creating an open war England could’ve easily lost. Her careful support of the low countries also furthered her interests without an open war until very late. She was able to steal Spanish gold via her privateers without an open war. She was also very good with money, carefully rebuilding the finances her father ruined. Her espionage network was world class, keeping her finger on the pulse of politics and helping her maneuver to avoid open war to get what she wanted. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots is a culmination of these things, coming away from it with the illusion of clean hands while eliminating a major rival that couldn’t just be killed to be killed. A lot of this was of course directly done by the men under her, but being able to recognize, trust, and delegate to good men is a talent too. And, she did all of this while commanding a genuine devotion from her nobles and people. The Golden Speech episode is a good example of this. Any lesser person, and probably any other woman, would have utterly failed without Elizabeth I’s ability. She’s definitely one of the best monarchs of England.
>>18547000I think most people doesn't realize how instrumental she was for England to become an industrialized empire, England at that time was really lagging behind compared to the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Dutch, the last ones buying english wool for cheap and selling the manufactured textiles back at them a higher prices. Her proteccionist policy against foreign textiles may as well triggered the industrialization of England that made the country powerful later by allowing the english textile industry to florish
