7th Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I 7th Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I The 7th Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I was summoned by Queen Elizabeth I of England on 18 September 1588 and assembled on 4 February 1589. Originally summoned in response to the defeat of the Spanish Armada in August 1588, the opening was delayed by Elizabeth as long as possible to avoid the inevitable debates on religious reform and foreign policy which she considered her own private prerogative. At the opening of Parliament on February 4 Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Chancellor, ordered the assembled Houses of Lords and Commons on behalf of the Queen
Succession to Elizabeth I of England Henry VII who reached adulthood, Margaret and Mary, was the first and main issue in the succession. Mary I of England had died without managing to have her preferred successor and first cousin, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, nominated by parliament. Margaret Douglas was a daughter of Margaret Tudor, and lived to 1578, but became a marginal figure in discussions of the succession to Elizabeth I, who at no point clarified the dynastic issues of the Tudor line. When in 1565 Margaret Douglas's elder son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, married Mary, Queen of Scots, the "Lennox claim" was generally regarded