ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Tudor died in the early hours of 24 March 1603, after a long and bitterly fought battle with the cabal of illnesses that conspired against her. It was the inevitable crisis for which her subjects had been bracing themselves for more than 40 years. The scenario had been imagined constantly, and dozens of plans laid for dealing with it. All of the long reign’s plans for elective monarchy and schemes for monarchical-republican devices, by both Catholics and Protestants, had led up to this moment.
