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Queen Elizabeth I (September 7, 1533 – March 24, 1603) was variously known as the Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, she was the last of the five monarchs of the House of Tudor. Elizabeth’s reign is generally credited with overseeing the rise of Britain’s global ambitions and the making of early modern London. This was so-named for the fact that she founded Kingston Grammar School at Lovekyn Chapel, which is at the south end of the street. According to the school’s website: “On 1st March 1561 Queen Elizabeth I put her seal to a Charter which established the ‘free grammar school of Queen Elizabeth, for the education, training and instruction of boys and youths in grammar’. There is written evidence of a public school in Kingston at least two hundred years earlier, and some historians have suggested that the Charter was in effect putting the royal stamp on a school that had been operating off and on since the Middle Ages.”
