The Twilight of the Tudors

What caused Elizabeth I’s death and why didn’t she leave a will?

On Wednesday, March 18, 1603, as the defeated Hugh O’Neill, rebel leader, made his preparations to surrender in Ireland, Queen Elizabeth, victorious monarch, resided with her court at the Palace of Richmond. The royal household of some 1,700 people had moved there on January 21st in “very foul and wet weather.”

For her entire reign, Elizabeth favored Richmond, a handsome castle that loomed over the Thames like a dense forest of turrets, because she…