Leadership...

Queen Elizabeth I was good at handling people and shrewd at manipulating foreign and internal affairs. Excellent education; she was highly intelligent and hardworking 

 Elizabeth was advised by a privy council of 19 men. She demanded complete loyalty and plain speaking from privy council. Did not meet with council as a group; she preferred individual conferences where she might be able to play them off each other.

This tactic also prevented her advisors from ‘ganging up’ on her. Executions of persons charged with treason; especially those knew well. Elizabeth's cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, was an English prisoner for 19 years on charges of treason.

Elizabeth signed her death warrant with great reluctance.  She never met or spoke with her cousin in person. Elizabeth named Mary’s son, James VI, her successor