Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I (1533–1603), daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 until her death. Educated in Latin, Greek and several modern languages, she wrote a handful of poems, many of them circulated in manuscript.

'The Doubt of Future Foes', composed about 1571, is generally read as a response to the presence in England of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had fled there in 1568.