- Title: Elizabeth
- Date: 4th May 2000
- Summary: In this first episode David Starkey examines Elizabeth I's life before her coronation. If her reign was full of glorious victories,her earlier life was a perilous journey. Her father would kill her mother and Elizabeth would be disinherited,sexually abused and imprisoned at the Tower under threat of execution.
- Description:Elizabeth,the virgin Queen,the most powerful woman in English history. She emerged as a young princess against a backdrop of civil unrest,political intrique,executions and coups. She ruled for 45 years and presided over a new kind of state. Her reign saw England emerge from the threat of European annexation to burst forth in a unique flowering of culture and became the world's leading sea power. The beginning of the end for the old regime,but the start of a new one - a second Elizabeth era. At its head were writers such as Shakespeare and Marlow,and poet soldiers such as Essex and Raleigh,men with new ideas and ferocious ambition. The ailing and conservative Queen is increasingly out of step,prone to political mistakes and without an heir.
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:Htv Ltd. T/A United Productions Bristol
- Programme Episode:Episode 1
- Transmission Date:04/05/2000
- Rights:Worldwide
- Decade: 2000s