ELIZABETH (1533-1603), queen of England and Ireland, born on Sunday the 7th of September 1533, and, like all the Tudors except Henry VII., at Greenwich Palace, was the only surviving child of Henry VIII. by his second queen, Anne Boleyn. With such a mother and with Cranmer as her godfather she represented from her birth the principle of revolt from Rome, but the opponents of that movement attached little importance to her advent into the world. Charles V.'s ambassador, Chapuys, hardly deigned to mention the fact that the king's _amie_ had given birth to a daughter, and both her parents were bitterly disappointed with her sex. She was, however, given precedence over Mary, her elder sister by sixteen years, and Mary never forgave the infant's offence. Even this dubious advantage only lasted three years until her mother was beheaded, and by a much more serious freak on Henry's part "divorced." Elizabeth has been censured for having made no effort in later years to clear her mother's memory; but no vindication of Anne's character could have rehabilitated Elizabeth's legitimacy. Her mother was not "divorced" for her alleged adultery, because that crime was no ground for divorce by Roman or English canon law. The marriage was declared invalid _ab initio_ either on the ground of Anne's precontract with Lord Percy or more probably on the ground of the affinity established between Henry and Anne by Henry's previous relations with Mary Boleyn. Elizabeth thus lost all hereditary title to the throne, and her early years of childhood can hardly have been happier than Mary's. Nor was her legitimacy ever legally established; but after Jane Seymour's death, when Henry seemed likely to have no further issue, she was by act of parliament placed next in order of the succession after Edward and Mary and their issue; and this statutory arrangement was confirmed by the will which Henry VIII. was empowered by statute to make. Queen Catherine Parr introduced some humanity into Henry's household, and Edward and Elizabeth were well and happily educated together, principally at old Hatfield House, which is now the marquess of Salisbury's stables. They were there when Henry's death called Edward VI. away to greater dignities, and Elizabeth was left in the care of Catherine Parr, who married in indecent haste Thomas, Lord Seymour, brother of the protector Somerset. This unprincipled adventurer, even before Catherine's death in September 1548, paid indelicate attentions to Elizabeth. Any attempt to marry her without the council's leave would have been treason on his part and would have deprived Elizabeth of her contingent right to the succession. Accordingly, when Seymour's other misbehaviour led to his arrest, his relations with Elizabeth were made the subject of a very trying investigation, which gave Elizabeth her first lessons in the feminine arts of self-defence. She proved equal to the occasion, partly