Mary I of England in the context of "Elizabeth I"

An epithet (from Ancient Greek ἐπίθετον (epítheton) 'adjective', from ἐπίθετος (epíthetos) 'additional'), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleiman the Magnificent, Richard the Lionheart, and Ladislaus the Short, or allusive, as in Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, Æthelred the Unready, John Lackland, Mehmed the Conqueror and Bloody Mary.

The word epithet also may refer to an abusive, defamatory, or derogatory word or phrase. This use is criticized by Martin Manser and other proponents of linguistic prescription. H. W. Fowler noted in 1926 that "epithet is suffering a vulgarization that is giving it an abusive imputation".

Prester John (Latin: Presbyter Ioannes) was a mythical Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures.

At first, Prester John was imagined to reside in India. Tales of the Nestorian Christians' evangelistic success there and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels as documented in works like the Acts of Thomas probably provided the first seeds of the legend. As Europeans became aware of the Mongols and their empire, accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers came to believe that the term was a reference to Ethiopia, which at that time was an isolated Christian "exclave" distant from any other Christian-ruled territory.

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was the Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history and culture, gave name to the Elizabethan era.

Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When Elizabeth was two years old, her parents' marriage was annulled, her mother was executed, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10. After Henry's death in 1547, Elizabeth's younger half-brother Edward VI ruled until his own death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to a Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, despite statutes to the contrary. Edward's will was quickly set aside and the Catholic Mary became queen, deposing Jane. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

Mary I of England died on 17 November 1558 at St James's Palace in Westminster. She was 42 years old. Mary was buried in Westminster Abbey on 14 December.

The Second Statute of Repeal (1 & 2 Ph. & M. c. 8) or the See of Rome Act 1554, was an act of the Parliament of England passed in the Parliament of Queen Mary I and King Philip in 1555, followed the First Statute of Repeal (1 Mar. Sess. 2. c. 2) of 1553. The first statute had abolished all religious legislation passed under Edward VI and the second statute built on it by abolishing all religious legislation passed against the papacy from 1529 (the fall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey) in Henry VIII's reign. It was supported by the landed classes as it allowed them to keep the monastic land which they had acquired after the dissolution of the monasteries.

Lady Jane Grey (1536/1537 – 12 February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage, and nicknamed as the "Nine Days Queen", was an English noblewoman who was proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland on 10 July 1553 and reigned until she was deposed by the Privy Council of England, which proclaimed her cousin, Mary I, as the new Queen on 19 July. Jane was later beheaded for high treason.

Jane was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII (through his youngest daughter, Mary Tudor), the grandniece of Henry VIII, and the first cousin once removed of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. Under the will of Henry VIII, Jane was in line to the throne after her cousins. She had a humanist education and a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day. In May 1553, she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward VI's chief minister, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. In June, the dying Edward VI wrote his will, nominating Jane and her male heirs as successors to the Crown, in part because his half-sister Mary was Catholic, whereas Jane was a committed Protestant and would support the reformed Church of England, whose foundation Edward laid. The will removed both of his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession because of their illegitimacy, subverting their lawful claims under the Third Succession Act. Through the Duke of Northumberland, Edward's letters patent in favour of Jane were signed by the entire privy council, bishops, and other notables.

The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It was the initial church of the Anglican tradition. The Church traces its history to the Christian hierarchy recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its members are called Anglicans.

In 1534, the Church of England renounced the authority of the Papacy under the direction of King Henry VIII pursuant to laws passed by the Parliament, beginning the English Reformation. The guiding theologian that shaped Anglican doctrine was the reforming Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who developed the Church of England's liturgical text, the Book of Common Prayer. Papal authority was briefly restored under Mary I, before her successor Elizabeth I renewed the breach. The Elizabethan Settlement (implemented 1559–1563) concluded the English Reformation, charting a course for the English church to describe itself as a via media between two branches of Protestantism—Lutheranism and Calvinism—and later, a denomination that is both Reformed and Catholic.