To What Extent Was England Provided with Effective Government During the Reign of Elizabeth

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To what extent was England provided with effective government during the reign of Elizabeth As their new ruler, Elizabeth had to win the support and most importantly the respect of her government. As a woman she had to work harder to achieve this, however to many she went down in history as a great monarch and has this image of gloriana, the great English queen and as the last of the Tudors, the last English queen by blood. During what some refer to as the mid-Tudor crisis, the failures were all blamed on the monarchs but government always deserve some of the credit so for Elizabeth to have a successful reign she would have to have been aided well by her government. Perhaps the most crucial part of government in the 16th century would be the Privy Council, the ministers which are closest to the Queen and the advisors who arguably have much more power and influence over monarchs than parliament or the nobles and lords. Since Elizabeth wanted to distance herself from the largely unpopular Mary Tudor, she chose her own 19 man Privy Council, made up of people she trusted and quite crucially none of them were hard core Catholics. William Cecil or baron Burghley as he was later referred as was perhaps the most important council member, he was a very astute politician and almost like a father figure to Elizabeth, this trust earned him the job of secretary of state. Cecil was hard working, incredibly loyal to England and to Elizabeth and crucially did not only get the job because he knew Elizabeth; he knew how government worked and what he needed to do to effectively run a big part of country. He was never afraid to tell Elizabeth when he thought she was wrong which of course would frustrate her at the time but she always valued his opinions, most people in Tudor England would just agree and go along with whatever the monarch said so to have such a loyal and smart

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