Elizabeth of England (1533-1603) was the daughter of Henry VIII and was crowned in 1588. Her reign saw events that definitively established England as a great power: the victory over the Spanish Armada, the final establishment of the Anglican Church, the circumnavigation of the globe by Sir Francis Drake, and the founding of the first colonies. The historian Gertrude Aretz, who specialized in significant female figures in history, published her biographical sketch about Elizabeth's difficult path to the throne in 1937.