When you need somebody to play a queen, you can’t do much better than to call Helen Mirren. The regal actress plays not one, but two queens – and they’re both named Elizabeth – in the coming year.

“After tea, thou shalt dress up as a dragon, such that I should slay thee.” “Nobody larped like the Tudors.” So says Lizzie Stark in her essay on the much-longer-and-richer-than-you-thought history of ...