ELIZABETH, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA, daughter of Peter the Great and Catharine I.; assisted Maria Theresa in the war of the Austrian Succession; opposed Frederick the Great in the Seven Years’ War; indolent and licentious, she left the affairs of the State mainly in the hands of favourites (1709-1762).

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA, daughter of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England; married Frederick V., Elector Palatine, who for a brief time held the throne of Bohemia; her daughter Sophia, by marrying the Elector of Hanover, formed a tie which ultimately brought the crown of England to the House of Brunswick (1596-1662).

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND (1658-1603), daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, born in Greenwich Palace; was an indefatigable student in her youth; acquired Greek and Latin, and a conversational knowledge of German and French; the Pope’s opposition to her succession on the ground of being judged illegitimate by the Church strengthened her attachment to the Protestant faith, which was her mother’s, and contributed to its firm establishment during the reign; during it the power of Spain was crushed by the defeat of the Armada; maritime enterprise flourished under Drake, Raleigh, and Frobisher; commerce was extended, and literature carried to a pitch of perfection never before or since reached; masterful and adroit, Elizabeth yet displayed the weakness of vanity and vindictiveness; the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, is a blot upon her fame, and her intrigues with Seymour, Leicester, and Essex detract from her dignity; her wisdom was manifested in her wise choice of counsellors and leaders, and her patriotism won her a secure place in the hearts of her people (1533-1608).

ELIZABETH, ST., “a very pious, but also a very fanciful young woman; her husband, a Thuringian landgraf, going to the Crusade, where he died straightway,” Carlyle guesses, “partly the fruit of the life she led him; lodging beggars, sometimes in her very bed; continually breaking his night’s rest for prayer and devotional exercises of undue length, ‘weeping one moment, then smiling in joy the next’; meandering about, capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly; went to live at Marburg after her husband’s death, and soon died there in a most melodiously pious sort” in 1231, aged 24.

ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE, a term applied to the style of architecture which flourished in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., and which was characterised by a revival of classic designs wrought into the decadent Gothic style.  Lord Salisbury’s house at Hatfield is a good specimen of this mixed style.

ELIZABETHAN ERA, according to Carlyle, “the outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded it... in that old age lies the only true poetical literature of England.  The poets of the last ago took to pedagogy (Pope and his school), and shrewd men they were; those of the present age to ground-and-lofty tumbling; and it will do your heart good,” he adds, “to see how they vault.”