Queen of This Realm

"WHEN I LOOK BACK OVER THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS of my life and consider the number of times I was in danger of losing it, I believe-as I have since that wonderful day when I rode into my capital city in a riding dress of purple velvet, beside me my Master of Horse, Robert Dudley, the most handsome man in England, and listened to the guns of the Tower greeting me, and saw the flowers strewn in my path-yes, I fervently believe that my destiny was to be a great queen."