by Donizetti

A tourney has been given in honor of the French ambassador, who is negotiating with Elisabetta concerning a marriage proposal from the King of France. Elisabetta is contemplating the marriage  through a sense of duty to her subjects, while secretly pining for Leicester, whose absence from court she has noticed.

  The story is loosely based on the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart) and her cousin Queen Elizabeth I.