ABSTRACT
These were the years when Elizabeth faced two of the greatest crises of her life. The first was when she was finally forced to accept that as long as Queen Mary lived, her own life would be in danger; the second was when the Spanish Armada of 1588 came so near to achieving the ambition of Philip II of Spain to replace Elizabeth by a Catholic monarch (something he could much more easily manage after the execution of Mary, the strongest Catholic claimant to the English throne.)
