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Four-hundred years after her death, Queen Elizabeth I has come home to Greenwich. While her body still lies in Westminster Abbey, the National Maritime Museum — situated in the Thames-side town where the Virgin Queen was born — is hosting "Elizabeth" until Sept. 14. The richly textured exhibition brings together the largest collection of personal items, paintings and other Elizabeth-related items ever assembled. Some have never been on public display before.

"This is an unbelievably rare bringing together of things that have not been together since Elizabeth died — and probably will never be together again," says guest curator David Starkey, the Tudor historian, author and television personality. Starkey says the exhibition's greatest achievement is in the juxtaposition of the 350 objects — including armour, navigational instruments, paintings, documents, furniture and jewelry — that are on display. "Four-hundred years roll past," he adds. "It's tactile. These are precious, precious objects."

"Elizabeth's story," says Roy Clare, the museum's director, "is at heart a sea-faring story." It was under the reign of this daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn — the second of his six wives — that Britain began to develop as a colonial power. To manage the nation's burgeoning wealth, Elizabeth forged ties with financiers and merchant banks and sent Francis Drake and others off in search of trade routes.

Reflecting the brutal world that Elizabeth was born into at Henry's Greenwich Palace in 1533, the exhibition opens with the glittering armour of the Earl of Pembroke. "Elizabeth was a woman and a vulnerable teenager in a thug culture," says Starkey. "She was on the receiving end of power." The Pembroke armour, illustrating the military might of the nobility when Elizabeth was a child, is the only surviving piece made for man and horse at the Royal Armoury in Greenwich.

From that harsh beginning, the exhibition is divided into seven sections: the young Elizabeth; her England; her court; her adventurers; her complex visual representations; threats to her crown; and her final years and legacy. Through rarely or never-before seen letters, personal accessories, household items, portraits, coins, miniatures, maps and navigational equipment the rich story of Elizabeth's dramatic life unfolds.

Starkey considers Elizabeth to be one of the country's most successful monarchs, one of "true greatness" who made it to the throne against the odds. There was no precedent in English history, says Starkey, for "a successful, unmarried and childless Queen." Ironically, she became Queen because neither Edward VI, her half-brother, nor Mary I, her half-sister, had children either. "If Edward had produced a child, we'd be like Prussia," contends Starkey. "If Mary and Philip had produced a child, we'd be like Sicily." Elizabeth, he says, opted for a middle way. She trusted her advisers, swore an oath to do justice and never lost sight of the human cost of wielding power. In a different way, she was as revolutionary in her day in Margaret Thatcher was in hers.

• MARYANN BIRD
• The first Queen Elizabeth is celebrated in the place she was born