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Statue of Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603) inherited the English throne in 1558 as Henry VIII's last surviving child. She established a moderate form of Protestantism known as the Elizabethan Settlement, which formed much of the basis of the modern Church of England. While she faced challenges from Catholics at home and abroad, her reign is seen as an English Golden Age, with relative domestic stability, the beginnings of exploration in the New World and the flourishing of English literature, giving rise to great writers such as William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser. She was known as the "Virgin Queen" for her refusal to marry, though her lack of children meant she was the last Tudor monarch.
The Elizabeth I statue is the oldest outdoor statue in London. It was built in 1586, during her own lifetime, by William Kerwin. Initially placed atop Ludgate – one of the old gateways into London – when the gate was demolished in 1760, it was transferred to the outer walls of the church of St Dunstan in the West, London, where it stands today. Elizabeth is portrayed crowned, with a sceptre in her right hand and an orb in her left, all signals of her queenly status and authority.
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Original image by Kotomi_. Uploaded by Michael McComb, published on 22 April 2025. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
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