[2] Elizabeth I's first surviving state paper is dated 17 November 1558, the day of her accession, and is a memorandum for the appointment of "Commissioners for the Coronation"; a month later five had been selected, with Sir Richard Sackville taking charge.

[3] The date of Sunday 15 January 1559 was set: not, as in previous coronations, an appropriate Christian holy day but, following the advice of her court astrologer, Dr John Dee, one on which the stars and planets would be in favourable positions.

Elizabeth consulted Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, who warned against attempting to repeal the Succession Acts and the tangle of legislation relating to them.

That role traditionally fell to the archbishop of Canterbury, but the incumbent Reginald Pole had died of influenza on 17 November, only 12 hours after Queen Mary, and in the uncertainty of the new regime, a successor had yet to be appointed.

[12] Oglethorpe had already displeased Elizabeth at the Christmas mass at the Chapel Royal, when he performed the Elevation of the Host, despite instructions to the contrary since Protestant reformers connected this ritual with transubstantiation; the Queen therefore walked out of the service before its conclusion.

[16] The procession on Thursday 12 January was on the Thames from Whitehall Palace to the Tower of London; the fleet of "ships, galleys, brigantines &c. were prepared as sumptuously as possible" which Il Schifanoya thought "reminded one of Ascension Day in Venice".

The queen, attended by members of her court embarked on her royal barge, which was covered with tapestries, both inside and out, and was towed by a galley rowed by 40 men with "a band of music".

[18] Besides Il Schifanoya's account of the event, there is also a pamphlet called The Quene's Majestie's passage through the citie of London to westminster the day before her coronacion written by Richard Mulcaster, which was published almost immediately afterwards and had run to a second edition two months later.

[19] Il Schifanoya noted that it snowed a little; also that the route had been prepared with wooden barriers to hold back the crowds and that people had spread sand and gravel outside their houses to mitigate the muddy roads.

[25] Towards the western end of Cheapside, the Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen awaited the queen, and Ranulph Cholmley, recorder of the City, made a speech and presented a satin purse containing a thousand marks in gold to Elizabeth.

[31] The depiction of Elizabeth as Deborah was aimed at the supporters of Calvinist reformer John Knox, who in the previous year had published a polemic entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women.

[32] This representation of Parliament underscored Elizabeth's legitimacy as ruler by good counsel, following and building on the Little Conduit pageant where her rule appeared justified by the Word of God.

[35] After being censed by the archbishop of York, the queen walked the short distance to the abbey in procession, flanked by the Earls of Pembroke and Shrewsbury and her train carried by the Duchess of Norfolk.

She was followed by other nobles carrying the coronation swords, the orb and three crowns which were borne by the Kings of Arms,[34] all accompanied by the Choir of the Chapel Royal singing the processional hymn Salve festa dies ("Hail, Thou Festal Day").

On the congregation being asked if they accepted Elizabeth as their queen, Il Schifanoya (who probably was not inside the abbey) reported that "they all shouted 'Yes'; and the organs, fifes, trumpets and drums playing, the bells also ringing, it seemed as if the world were come to an end".

At some point during the mass, Elizabeth withdrew to the "traverse", a curtained off area behind the high altar and next to St Edward's shrine, a private space in which the monarch could make the several changes of dress required for the ceremonial.

[40] John Guy[41] and Lisa Hilton both state that the royal chaplain, George Carew, sang the mass without elevation and administered Holy Communion to the queen inside the traverse.

Westminster Hall had been decorated by the hanging of two enormous tapestries which had been bought by Henry VIII, representing the Book of Genesis and the Acts of the Apostles; while on a raised platform was a buffet on which were displayed an array of 140 gold and silver cups.

The highlight of the feast was the entry of the Queen's Champion, 'a country gentleman whose family has long been privileged to do this at all Coronations', actually Sir Edward Dymoke, mounted and in a full suit of armour, who issued the traditional challenges, each time throwing down his gauntlet.

[19] In the following centuries, historians from Raphael Holinshed onwards drew heavily on the tone of Mulcaster's The Quenes makesties pasage and presented the 1559 coronation and pageants as a turning point against imposed Catholicism and the triumph of popular Protestantism.