Elizabeth I (miniseries)

Part 1

By 1579, Elizabeth I has reigned for about 20 years and has refused to marry. Her chief advisor Lord Burghley and her spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham plan to have her marry the Duke of Anjou, brother of Henry III of France, to make an alliance against Spain. Elizabeth's favourite the Earl of Leicester strongly opposes the match because of his own longstanding affections for her. The Duke of Anjou eventually comes to court Elizabeth, but despite him being to her liking, she is later convinced by Burghley not to marry him because of negative popular opinion towards the match.

Over time, Walsingham gathers evidence to prove that Elizabeth's Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots is plotting to have her killed. Elizabeth is reluctant to have Mary executed because of the war it would likely ignite between England and Spain. During a secret meeting, Mary gives Elizabeth her word that she does not want her dead. Elizabeth hesitantly gives Leicester command of the English campaign to assist the Dutch against Spain, which fails. Once it is proven that Mary has in fact been conspiring against Elizabeth's life, Mary is judged guilty of treason and later executed.

After negotiations between England and Spain fail, a fleet of Spanish ships are sent for England. Elizabeth gives Leicester command of the land forces and rides with him and his stepson the Earl of Essex to Tilbury, where they expect the Spanish to attempt a landing and where Elizabeth delivers a speech to the troops. The Spanish Armada is ultimately defeated, but Leicester falls gravely ill just as they learn of the English victory. Later, on his deathbed, Leicester bids Essex to take care of Elizabeth.

Part 2

By 1589, Elizabeth has made a favourite of Essex and falls in love with him. She is openly outraged when he takes part in an English military expedition to Lisbon against her wishes, but she forgives him in spite of his failure to take the city from the Spanish. She grants him 10 percent of a tax on sweet wines and a seat on the Privy Council, of which Lord Burghley's son Robert Cecil was also recently made a member. Essex and Cecil develop a rivalry, as illustrated by the affair of Elizabeth's physician Dr. Lopez, who is hanged based on evidence brought forth by Essex of his participation in a Spanish plot against Elizabeth, evidence proven questionable after the fact by Cecil.

Essex's political ambitions begin to clash with his devotion and loyalty to Elizabeth. As Elizabeth finds her young lover's behavior becoming increasingly worrisome, she draws closer to Cecil, who is named Secretary of State following the death of Walsingham. Essex is publicly hailed upon his return to England after taking Cadiz from the Spanish, but his relationship with Elizabeth begins to deteriorate. She and Cecil suspect Essex of secretly communicating with James VI of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, a potential successor to the English throne. After Burghley's death, Elizabeth sends Essex to Ireland to put down a rebellion but he instead makes a truce and returns to England alone. Elizabeth puts Essex under house arrest.

Essex and his followers fail to start a rebellion in London and are captured. At his trial, Essex accuses Cecil of collaborating with Spain but has no evidence to prove this, and he is found guilty of treason and beheaded. Some time later, Elizabeth becomes listless, going for three weeks without eating before making her way to her bed and requesting a priest, saying she is minded to die.

Cast

Eight actors receive billing in the opening credits of one or both parts of Elizabeth I:

The full cast of characters of each part is listed in the closing credits of each part. Apart from those receiving star billing, those in Part 1 include:

Apart from those receiving star billing and Salaman as Dr Lopez, those in Part 2 include:

Production

According to director Tom Hooper, Mirren "came onboard before the script was written because the feeling was that it was only worth doing if she would play it." Hooper and Mirren had previously worked together on the police procedural drama Prime Suspect 6 (2003). The project on Elizabeth I was originally going to be two hours and focus on her relationship with the Earl of Essex, but Mirren "felt that there should be more politics" according to writer Nigel Williams. The series was filmed in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the massive sets were constructed inside a sports arena that was abandoned in the 1970s. The Whitehall Palace set was constructed to scale from original plans.

Critical response

At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Elizabeth I received an average score of 81% based on 21 reviews.

David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Mirren's performance "is powerful enough to shatter your television screen, not to mention any notion you might have had that if you've seen one Elizabeth—Bette Davis, Glenda Jackson or Cate Blanchett, for example—you've seen them all." He added that Irons, who he felt "has sometimes settled into craggy self-parody in lesser films [...] invests Leicester with as much depth and complexity as he can, and he is every bit Mirren's equal onscreen."

Brian Lowry of Variety felt that the second part was better than the first, praised Mirren's performance and wrote that "[director] Tom Hooper, who previously directed Mirren in Prime Suspect 6, indulges [writer Nigel] Williams' penchant for long, theatrical monologues, which require a little getting used to in the slow early going. Gradually, however, as with the best British costume drama, the narrative becomes absorbing."

Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times wrote that Mirren is "one of the few actresses working today who can actually convincingly play a historical figure in her 40's" and that Elizabeth I was more historically accurate than Elizabeth (1998), though she felt that "[the miniseries'] interpretation, like so many others, wallows in the painful self-pity of a powerful, aging woman who craves true love". While the miniseries is visually "no match for the 1998 movie" to Stanley, she concludes that Elizabeth I offers "a richly drawn portrait of a powerful woman who is both ruthless and sentimental, formidable and mercurial, vain and likable."

Accolades