Tudor history queen elizabeth 1st biography

Elizabeth’s birth was awaited with huge anticipation. Her father, Henry VIII, needed a male heir, and he was certain that, having cast-off his invalid marriage to his first wife, Katharine of Aragon, his second wife, Anne Boleyn, would provide him with one.

Queen elizabeth the first

Queen Anne was equally confident. She had had an easy pregnancy and gave birth to Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace on the eve of the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin. Despite initial disappointment over her sex, Henry and Anne were happy to have a healthy child.

Immediately after her christening, Elizabeth was proclaimed her father’s heir, setting aside the rights of her half-sister, Mary, and in the following year, 1534, Parliament passed an Act of Succession, which required everyone to swear to Elizabeth as the legitimate heir to the kingdom.

Queen elizabeth 1 family tree

For the first two-and-a-half years of her life, Elizabeth, in the care of Lady Bryan, was petted and indulged. She saw her parents regularly, and they doted on her. But