Queen Elizabeth

Twelve English Statesmen
QUEEN ELIZABETH
BY EDWARD SPENCER BEESLY
Sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo. Tacitus, Ann. I. 1.
London MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1906 All rights reserved First Edition printed February 1892. Reprinted March 1892; 1895; 1897; 1900; 1903; 1906.

I HAVE to deal, under strict limitations of space, with a long life, almost the whole of its adult period passed in the exercise of sovereignty—a life which is in effect the history of England during forty-five years, abounding at the same time in personal interest, and the subject, both in its public and private aspects, of fierce and probably interminable controversies. Evidently a bird’s-eye view is all that can be attempted: and the most important episodes alone can be selected for consideration.
The daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn was born on September 6, 1533. Anne was niece of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, and all the great Howard kinsmen attended at the baptism four days afterwards. Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded, and she herself was declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament. It is not recorded that in after years she expressed any opinion about her mother or ever mentioned her name. She never took any steps to get the Act of attainder repealed; but perhaps she indirectly showed her belief in Anne’s innocence by raising the son of Norris, her alleged paramour, to the peerage, and by the great favour she always showed to his family.
During her father’s life Elizabeth lived chiefly at Hatfield with her brother Edward, under a governess. Henry had been empowered by Parliament in 1536 to settle the succession by his will. In 1544 he caused an Act to be passed placing Mary and Elizabeth next in order of succession after Edward. By his will, made a few days before his death, he repeated the provisions of the Act of 1544, and placed next to Elizabeth the daughters of his younger sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, tacitly passing over his elder sister, the Queen of Scotland.