"Learn, Live and Love the World Around You"
Queen Elizabeth charted the an expedition to establish the Colony of Virginia after Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote, “A Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Pasage to Cataia”. Sir Humphrey Gilbert would become the first colonial governor of the commonwealth of Virginia.
In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert founded Newfoundland, under a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I, within what would become the Commonwealth of Virginia. I would argue, unlike most historians, that while the settlement of Newfoundland failed, 1583 should be designated as the founding of the Colony of Virginia, rather than the date of 1607 for the establishment of Jamestown, because it was the first attempt to colonize that area by the British.
After the English Civil War of the 1500s, members of the Colony of Virginia were deemed to be loyal emigrants of Britain, according to King Charles II, hence granting the Colony the name “The Old Dominion”.
The mother of Queen Elizabeth the First was beheaded when the queen was two years of age. After the turmoil her father caused after beheading multiple queens for failing to produce male heirs, the future queen survived the reign of her half brother, as well as her time imprisoned in a tower during the reign of Queen Mary I.
At the age of 25, Queen Elizabeth the First began to rule at a time of the golden age. The Spanish Armada was defeated, Shakespearean literature was produced and attempts to create the Newfoundland and the Roanoke settlements were made during her reign. While Sir Humphrey Gilbert failed to make Newfoundland a permanent settlement, it was the first attempt at establishing the Colony of the Virginia.
Hamilton Historical Records 