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
Portraiture of Elizabeth I of England in Tudor portraiture, a theme that would be expanded in later portraits. Recent conservation work has revealed that Elizabeth's now-iconic pale complexion in this portrait is the result of deterioration of red lake pigments, which has also altered the coloring of her dress. The excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V in 1570 led to increased tension with Philip II of Spain, who championed the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, as the legitimate heir of his late wife Mary I. This tension played out over the next decades in the seas of the New World as well as in Europe,