ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Britain's loving mother, the Queen, [woman dressed up as a Queen]

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who somehow still has the inexplicable power to dissolve Parliament.

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[ chuckles ] Really.

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Check out the following passage.

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All right, Elizabeth I was the Queen of England from 1558

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until her death in 1603. [man reading a passage]

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The last of the Tudor monarchs

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and a staunch Protestant, Elizabeth was one of the most

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famous and influential rulers in the world.

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During Elizabeth's reign, England became a world power and replaced Spain as

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the foremost empire in the world. [man continues reading the passage]

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Elizabeth never married, a controversial decision that was very unusual at the time.

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She became known as the Virgin Queen. Huh.

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All right, which of the following is the best synonym for the word "staunch"? [man reading out the question displayed on screen]

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, Queen Elizabeth's impact was vast, [sound of an evil laugh]

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overshadowed only by the vastness of her bustle.

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Heh. Yeah that thing. That's called a bustle, people.

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All right, and religion was a major part of her legacy,

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as she was a staunch Protestant. Right. [woman dressed as a Queen holding a book]

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Now even if we don't know the dictionary definition of "staunch,"

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context clues in the passage should allow us to sniff out

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an educated guess.

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Option C - fanatic is an unlikely choice.[image of a dog wearing spectacles]

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It implies Elizabeth wasn't a reasonable

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person, even though she helped England become the

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foremost empire in the world.

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Unless this is a game of Risk, one can't achieve world domination without reason. [kids playing the Risk Game]

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Well, similarly, if we know anything about the Elizabethan era,

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it's unlikely that one of the world's most

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famous and influential rulers was an unwilling Protestant. [man reading a passage]

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Religion was pretty important back then.

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And she probably wasn't stubborn about it, either.

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Elizabeth was famously devoted.

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Nobody was dragging her to church in the mornings. [woman dressed as a Queen talking to a nun]

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The definition of staunch is loyal

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and committed in attitude,

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which makes sense given what we know about Elizabeth and the times.

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It's safe to say that she was a deeply loyal Protestant. [people walking in the background]

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So option D is the best answer here.

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Next up, we discuss another historic queen. The band. [crowd cheering for a man who is singing]

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Although, uh, we doubt Elizabeth could jam like they could.

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[singing] We are the champions.

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