England's golden age was bankrolled partly by raiding Spanish treasure ships
Shakespeare, the defeat of the Armada and a flowering of music and poetry define the reign of Elizabeth I. Less glamorous was the money behind it: privateering against Spanish ships, raids on weak settlements, the slave trade, and a queen so thrifty she cleared the Crown's debts by 1574.
Elizabeth reigned from 1558 to 1603, and historians often call the period England's golden age. Government worked well thanks to reforms under Henry VII and Henry VIII, trade across the Atlantic boosted the economy, and Protestantism became more widely accepted. It was the last era before England shared a monarch with Scotland, and the high point of the English Renaissance, with theatre above all breaking new ground.
The reign was a calm stretch between storms. Behind it lay the Wars of the Roses and the religious upheavals of the Reformation; ahead lay the English Civil War and a century of struggle between Parliament and Crown. Elizabeth's religious settlement dampened sectarian strife for a time, and Parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge her. Abroad, England looked comfortable: Italy was impoverished after its wars, France was consumed by its Wars of Religion from 1562 to 1598, and old Anglo-French hostilities were mostly on hold.
Spain was the great rival. Clashes in Europe and the Americas became an undeclared war from 1585 to 1604, and Philip II's Armada of 1588 was famously beaten. England won few military triumphs, but it avoided disaster and built a formidable navy. Having inherited a near-bankrupt state, Elizabeth's frugality had produced a £300,000 surplus a decade after the debts were cleared. Thomas Gresham's Royal Exchange of 1565, England's first stock exchange, proved hugely important, and low taxes helped the economy grow, although wealth was spread very unequally.
Beneath the glitter ran constant intrigue. Powerful figures in Madrid, Paris and Rome wanted the Protestant queen dead and the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. The Ridolfi plot was foiled in 1570 and the Throckmorton plot uncovered in 1584 after its ringleader confessed. The Babington plot, exposed through a double agent run by the spymaster Francis Walsingham, led most directly to Mary's execution.
Source: Elizabethan era
