Elizabeth's health had remained fair until the…

Elizabeth's health had remained fair until the autumn of 1602, when a series of deaths among her friends plunged her into a severe depression.

The death in February 1603 of Catherine Howard, Countess of Nottingham, the niece of her cousin and close friend Catherine, Lady Knollys, had come as a particular blow.

Elizabeth falls sick in March and remains in a "settled and unremovable melancholy".

With the Queen clearly dying, Cecil sends James a draft proclamation of his accession to the English throne.

The Queen dies between two and three in the morning of March 24, 1603, at Richmond Palace.

Cecil and the council set their plans in motion a few hours later and proclaim James VI of Scotland as king of England.

The transition of power goes smoothly, despite the presence of several other claimants to the throne.

Leading papists, rather than causing trouble as anticipated, react to the news by offering their enthusiastic support for the new monarch.

Jesuit priests, whose presence in England is punishable by death, also demonstrate their support for James, who is widely believed to embody "the natural order of things".