Queen Elizabeth I

'The Ermine Portrait' of Elizabeth I, c1585, by Nicholas Hilliard

On November 17, 1558, Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne. Edmund Spenser famously wrote of Elizabeth in The Faerie Queene. In his work, he names the queen Gloriana.

Sunne of the world, great glory of the sky,

That all the earth doest lighten with thy rayes,

Great Gloriana, greatest majesty!

When Elizabeth I heard the news of her accession that November, she allegedly quoted the twenty-third line of Psalm 118 in Latin: A Dominum factum est illud, et est mirabile in oculis notris. ("It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.")