I always read the Elizabeth section and think that JA had her tongue very firmly in cheek!

Looking at the political situation, it's difficult to see how Elizabeth could have done anything else. Mary was plotting against her life and there was definite proof. She could hardly help a staunch catholic monarch to take back her throne over her protestant son and council. Mary should have seen this when she feld to England - but as ever she let her heart rule her head. She would have been a good queen consort as by all accounts she had oodles of charm, but as queen regnant, she failed pretty miserably. Yes, I do feel sorry for her, but also think she could have done with a good SUTH!

Although Elizabeth & Mary were cousins, I doubt there would really have been much in the way of family feeling - they never met. It's pretty lenient if you consider all those that Henry VII and Henry VIII executed - every Yorkist they could lay their dirty little mitts on. Clarence's daughter, the Countess of Sailsbury, was executed on trumped up charges by Henry VIII when she was pretty old - and she was pretty much butchered by the executioner. Now that's shocking!

It's probably fair to say that the Execution of MQoS precipitated the Spanish Armada - although who's to say it wouldn't have happened anyway? I wonder what all those believers in divine judgement made of things? the Armada was defeated. Elizabeth eventually died in bed, relatively peacefully. Phillip II of Spain had a pretty nasty demise. I forget quite what he was supposed to have had, but his flesh was being devoured by maggots while he was still alive, and he had his coffin placed next to his bed, so he could just drop off into it. And wasn't one of his sons raving made too??!!