The only son of King Henry VIII (by his third wife, Jane Seymour).
Somerset
Northumberland
Seizure of Church Lands Both Somerset and Northumberland continued the seizure of Church lands - in total they took lands worth £5-millions.
France
Somerset England went to war with France and Somerset failed to secure an alliance against France with the Holy Roman Emperor.
Northumberland obtained peace with France by giving up Boulogne.
Scotland
Somerset The marriage of Edward and Mary Stuart had been arranged to secure relations with Scotland but Somerset failed to prevent the spread of French influence in Scotland despite the opportunity which was afforded by the murder of Beaton in 1545.
Somerset routed the Scots at Pinkie in 1547 but Mary Stuart was sent to France where she soon married the Dauphin (Francis II).
Northumberland secured peace with the Scotch by removing the English garrisons.
Elizabeth was born on September 7th, 1533, at the royal Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London, the second daughter of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and only surviving child of his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
Elizabeth was recognised as the heir to the throne at the time of her birth although, because the circumstances of her parents' marriage (chiefly the divorce of Henry VIII from the Catholic Catherine of Aragon), Elizabeth was considered by Roman Catholics to be illegitimate. Her older half-sister, Mary Tudor (b.1515, later Queen Mary I, 1553-1558), the only surviving child of the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was passed over and made to serve in Elizabeth's household.
Elizabeth's childhood, unlike that of her half-sister Mary's, was comparatively happy and she recieved an extremely thorough education in literature, languages and music. Her life before her accession to the throne was not without its dangers and, at the time of Wyat's rebellion, Queen Mary had her imprisoned in the Tower of London for a time.
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The fortunes of the two-year-old princess and heir to the throne changed suddenly on the execution of her mother for treason in May 1536 and the birth of a male heir, Edward (later Edward VI), to Henry by his third wife, Lady Jane Seymour, in October 1537. Elizabeth was now placed in the same position as Mary had been at her own birth. To legitimise the new-born prince as Henry's heir, both his royal half-sisters were declared illigitimate.
All of King Henry's later wives treated Elizabeth and Mary kindly and Elizabeth was devoted to her father. Following Henry's death in 1547, he was succeeded to the throne by the young Edward VI and Elizabeth was placed in the care of her father's last wife, Catherine Parr, and her new husband, Thomas Seymour (c.1508-1549), Lord High Admiral, brother of Jane Seymour and uncle to the new king.
Seymour was attracted to the young Elizabeth who may have responded in kind. He hoped to marry her after Catherine's untimely death shortly after the birth of their child, but was executed (as was his brother Edward, the Lord Protector, later) in a series of power struggles during the minority of Edward VI.
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Under the aegis of Catherine Parr, Roger Ascham, and their associates, the princess Elizabeth was raised as a Protestant. She also received a fine education, an exceptional eduction for a woman of the time, under the tutelage of various scholars, including Ascham, renowned as author of "The Schoolmaster". She learnt the classics, history, mathematics, poetry, and languages and could speak and/or write capably in six languages during her reign: her native English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek.
Yea, I believe, that beside her perfect readiness in Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, she readeth here now at Windsor more Greek every day than some prebendary of this church doth read Latin in a whole week. |
- Roger Ascham, Elizabeth's tutor from 1548 to 1550 |
Elizabeth's position was secure during the lifetime of her half-brother, the king, but the young Edward VI died in 1553 of either tuberculosis or poisoning by arsenic. Following the brief and abortive attempt to place Lady Jane Grey, her staunchly Catholic half-sister Mary came to the throne as Queen Mary I.
Edward VI had been a sickly child since birth and is thought to have contracted congenital syphylis while still in the womb from his father. He died on July 6th, 1553, aged only fifteen of either tuberculosis or poisoning by arsenic and was interred in Westinster Abbey.
By the time of his death, the Protestant Edward was sufficiently master of his own destiny to have concerns about the succession. Having no wish for England to revert to Catholicism under his staunchly Catholic half-sister Mary Tudor, he was persuaded to support the claim to the throne of Northumberland's daughter-in-law and puppet, Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554).
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Arthur Tudor (1486-1502) |
| The ill-health of the two Tudor princes from birth and their death in their mid-teens has caused historians to speculate about the nature of their illness and whether it might have been a genetic condition. |
1537.Oct.12 | | Birth of Prince Edward to King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour Jane Seymour died a few days after the birth | | BAAAGBXA BAAAGDGG BAAAGDGI | 1537.Oct.15 | | Christening of Edward VI | | BAAAGDGG | 1537.Oct.24 | | Death of Jane Seymour | | BAAAGBXA BAAAGDGG BAAAGDGI | 1543.Jul | | Treaties of Greenwich: 6-month-old Mary, Queen of Scots, promised in marriage to Prince Edward, the son of Henry VIII in
1552
and for their heirs to inherit the kingdoms of Scotland and England | | BAAAGEKT BAAAGBXA BAAAGCLM BAAAGCLJ | 1544 | | Act of Succession: provides that Princess Mary might succeed to the throne if Edward dies without issue The last of 3 Acts of Succession passed in the reign of Henry VIII | | BAAAGCAB BAAAGBXA | 1544.May | | Henry VIII begins his rough wooing, a series of raids on Scottish territory, etc. (-June 1551), attempting impose the marriage to his son Edward VI on Mary, Queen of Scots | | BAAAGBXA BAAAGEKC BAAAGEKT | 1547.Feb.20 | | Coronation of Edward VI | | | by 1547 | | City of London levies taxes for poor relief Such tax levied nationally in 1572 with compulsion imposed on local authorities by 1576 | | BAAAGBWS BAAAGBTY BAAAGDKN BAAAGBXA | 1548 | | Mary, Queen of Scots, formally promised in marriage to the French dauphin - a French fleet rescues 5-year-old Mary from Dumbarton, taking her to France | | BAAAGEKT BAAAGBKY | 1548.Sep.05 | | Death of Katherine Parr | | | 1549 | | First Act of Uniformity The Roman Catholic mass proclaimed illegal; Church interiors are whitewashed and religious images are removed from view; Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, compiles the First Book of Common Prayer; church services are conducted in English instead of Latin for the first time | | BAAAGCBT | 1549 | | Cornish uprising in protest against Edward VI\'s English Book of Common Prayer The Book of Common Prayer was never translated into Cornish and spelt its demise as a living language | | BAAAGCEK BAAAGBBL BAAAGBBF BAAAGBCV | 1549 | | War with France | | BAAAGBKY | 1549 | | Ketts rebellion | | | 1549.Mar.20 | | Execution of Sir Thomas Seymour at the Tower of London for treason His execution brings disgrace upon Edward Seymour who was replaced as Lord Protector by John Dudley | | BAAAGDGD BAAAGEED BAAAGBZE BAAAGDKN BAAAGDGQ BAAAGDGI | 1549.Jun.09 | | First English Book of Common Prayer Causing the Prayerbook Rebellion | | BAAAGBAV | 1549.Sep.12 | | The Council issue special orders for Devon and Cornwall; where the rebels have used the bells in every Parish as an instrument to stir the multitude and call them together that all bells in the two counties should be taken down leaving in every church one Bell the least of the Ring that is now in the same, which may serve to call the Parishioners to the Sermon and Divine Service. | | BAAAGEFZ BAAAGCAQ BAAAGCEK BAAAGCEI paris | 1549.Oct | | John Dudley, 1st Earl of Warwick, becomes Lord President of the Council (Lord Protector, effective ruler of the realm) | | BAAAGDGQ BAAAGDGI | 1551.Jun | | End of raids on Scottish territory, etc., started as Henry VIII\'s rough wooing in 1544 The campaign is reckoned to have cost �500,000 apart from its cost in human life | | BAAAGBXA BAAAGEKC BAAAGEKT | 1552.Aug.22 | | Edward VI makes royal progress to Christchurch, Hampshire | | BAAAGCGU | 1553.Jul.06 | | Death of King Edward VI, aged only 15; Northumberland proclaims Lady Jane Grey as queen | | BAAAGCLM BAAAGCAB BAAAGDGQ BAAAGCBT BAAAGEKN | 1553.Jul.19 | | Mary I, the ardent Catholic daughter of Henry VIII by Katherine of Aragon proclaimed Queen of England in London, she undisputedly succeeds to the throne of England - Lady Jane Grey is deposed and imprisoned The proclamation made at Cheapside Cross and other accustomed places | | BAAAGEFL BAAAGCLM BAAAGCBT BAAAGEKN BAAAGCAB BAAAGDKN BAAAGDGQ | 1554.Feb.12 | | Execution of Lady Jane Grey, who had been proclaimed Queen of England by Northumberland on the death of Edward VI, and her husband Guildford Dudley at the Tower of London | | BAAAGEKN BAAAGCAB BAAAGCLM BAAAGCGR BAAAGDGQ |
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Tudor Royal Proclamations , ed. Paul L Hughes + James F Larkin, publisher Yale University Press, 1964-1969 3 volumes
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