7 September 1533 A.D. Queen Elizabeth 1
7
September 1533 A.D. Queen
Elizabeth 1
No author. “Queen Elizabeth 1: Queen of England.” Tudor Monarchs. N.d. http://tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/. Accessed 20 May 2014.
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Born: 7 September
1533
Greenwich Palace
Became Queen: 17
November 1558
Coronation: 15
January 1559
Westminster Abbey
Died: 24 March 1603
Richmond Palace
Buried: 28 April
1603
Westminster Abbey |
Anne did eventually conceive a son, but he was stillborn. By that point,
Henry had begun to grow tired of Anne and began to orchestrate her downfall.
Most, if not all, historians agree that Henry's charges of incest and adultery
against Anne were false, but they were all he needed to sign her execution
warrant. She was beheaded on the Tower Green on May 19, 1536,
before Elizabeth was even three years old.
Elizabeth was probably at the royal manor at Hunsdon when her mother was
arrested and executed after being at court for Christmas (and likely the last
time she saw her mother). Henry had remarried and was eagerly awaiting the son
he hoped Jane Seymour
was carrying. As it turned out, she was indeed to bear Henry a son, Edward
(future Edward VI).
Jane died shortly after her son was born.
Elizabeth's last stepmother was Katherine Parr, the sixth
queen to Henry VIII. Katherine had hoped to marry Thomas Seymour
(brother to the late Queen Jane), but she caught Henry's eye. She brought both
Elizabeth and her half-sister Mary
back to court. When Henry died, she became the Dowager Queen and took her
household from Court. Because of the young age of Edward VI, Edward Seymour (another
brother of Jane's and therefore the young King's uncle) became Lord Protector
of England.
Elizabeth went to live with the Queen Dowager Katherine, but left her
household after an incident with the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour, who was now
Katherine's husband. Just what occurred between Elizabeth and Thomas will never
be known for sure, but rumors at the time suggested that Katherine had caught
them kissing or perhaps even in bed together. Katherine was pregnant at the
time of the incident. She later gave birth to a daughter named Mary. Katherine
died not too long afterwards and was buried at Sudeley Castle. This left
Thomas Seymour as an eligible bachelor once again.
Because Elizabeth was a daughter of the late King Henry VIII, she was in
line to the throne (despite several attempts to remove her from the chain, she
was in Henry's will as an heir) and was therefore a most sought-after bride. During
the reign of Edward VI, Thomas Seymour asked for Elizabeth's hand in marriage,
which she refused. From this incident, both Thomas and Elizabeth were suspected
of plotting against the king. Elizabeth was questioned, but was never charged.
Seymour however, after an attempt to kidnap the boy king, was arrested and
eventually executed for treason. Elizabeth was reported to have said, upon
hearing of the Lord Admiral's death (although it is probably apocryphal):
"Today died a man of much wit, and very little judgment."
Edward may have contracted what was then called consumption (possibly
tuberculosis) or had a severe respiratory infection. When it looked inevitable
that the teenager would die without an heir of his own body, the plots for his
crown began. Reports of the young King's declining health spurred on those who
did not want the crown to fall to the Catholic Mary. It was during this time
that Guilford
Dudley married Lady Jane Grey, who was a
descendant of Henry VIII's sister Mary, and was therefore
also an heir to the throne. When Edward VI died in 1553, Jane was proclaimed
Queen by her father Henry Grey
and her father-in-law John Dudley,
who rallied armies to support her. However, many more supported the rightful
heir: Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Nine days after
Jane was proclaimed Queen, Mary rode into London with her sister Elizabeth.
Jane Grey and her husband Guilford were imprisoned in the Tower.
Shortly after becoming Queen, Mary was wed to Prince Philip of Spain,
which made the Catholic Queen quite unpopular. The persecuted Protestants saw
Elizabeth as their savior, since she was seen as an icon of "the new
faith". After all, it was to marry her mother Anne Boleyn that Henry
instituted the break with Rome. Because of this, several rebellions and
uprisings were made in Elizabeth's name, although she herself probably had
little or no knowledge of them. However, Mary sensed the danger from her
younger sister, and imprisoned her in the Tower.
The story, possibly apocryphal, of Elizabeth's entry into the Tower is
an interesting one. She was deathly (pun intended) afraid of the Tower,
probably thinking of her mother's fate in that place, and when she was told she
would be entering through Traitor's Gate, she refused to move. She had been
secreted to the Tower in the dark so as not to raise the sympathy of
supporters. That night was cold and rainy, and the Princess Elizabeth sat,
soaking wet, on the stairs from the river to the gate. After her governess
finally persuaded Elizabeth to enter, she did so and became yet another famous
prisoner of the Tower of London.
Elizabeth was released from the Tower after a few months of imprisonment
and was sent to Woodstock where she stayed for just under a year. When
it appeared that Mary had become pregnant, Elizabeth was no longer seen as a
significant threat and the Queen let her return to her residence at Hatfield, under semi- house
arrest. Mary Tudor was nearly 40 years old when the news of her
"pregnancy" came. After a few months, her belly began to swell, but
no baby was ever forthcoming. Some modern historians think that she had a large
ovarian cyst, and this is also what lead to her failing health and eventual
death.
News of Mary's death on November 17, 1558 reached Elizabeth at Hatfield,
where she was said to be out in the park, sitting under an oak tree. Upon
hearing that she was Queen, legend has it that Elizabeth quoted the 118th
Psalm's twenty-third line, in Latin: "A Dominum factum est illud, et
est mirabile in oculis notris" -- "It is the Lord's doing, and it
is marvelous in our eyes."
Elizabeth had survived and was finally Queen of England.
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