Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603), Queen of England and Ireland, was another female patron of the arts, albeit not of painting or such, but of drama. She was also known as The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Queen Elizabeth was the patron of the famous William Shakespeare. Queen Elizabeth greatly loved drama, devoted herself to the study of the ancient classical period; she also delighted in our own theatrical entertainments, and used her influence in the progress of the English drama, and fostered the inimitable genius of Shakespeare. In regard to her taste for the ancient stage, Sir Roger Naunton tells us “That the great Queen translated one of the tragedies of Euripides from the original Greek for her amusement.” Shakespeare was ardently attracted to Elizabeth and her Court, and proved a faithful servant to his royal mistress. The first evidence of this is in his fine eulogy of the virgin queen in that most sweetly poetical early drama, A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, as “a fair vestal throned by the west”; the play was probably produced for a special Court performance.