Queen Elizabeth, the last of the House of Tudor, died unmarried. Since her death in 1603, there have been revolutions in England due to varying causes, but all more or less disruptive of family memories. The son of James I had his head cut off, and after the Commonwealth which followed, Charles I’s son James II, had to quit on the coming of William III, by invitation. After William’s death without issue, Anne, daughter of James II, reigned for a dozen years, and was succeeded by George I, descended through the female line from James I. His descendants still sit on the throne of England. NO DESCENDANTS The above facts are given not merely in the way of historical enlightenment but rather as a sort of apologetic prolegomenon to the ethical consideration of the matter immediately before us. Had Queen Elizabeth had any descendants, they need not have feared any discussion of her claims of descent. The issue of the legality of her mother’s marriage had been tried exhaustively both before and after her own birth, and she held the sceptre both by the will of her dead father and the consent of her dead half-sister who left no issue. But Queen Elizabeth, whatever her origin, would have been a sufficient ancestor for any King or any Dynasty. Still, had she left issue there might have been lesser people, descendants, whose feelings in the matter of personal and family pride would have required consideration; and no person entering on an analysis of historical fact would have felt quite free-handed in such an investigation. B. THE QUEEN’S SECRET There are quite sufficient indications throughout the early life of Queen Elizabeth that there was _some_ secret which she kept religiously guarded. Various historians of the time have referred to it, and now and again in a way which is enlightening. In a letter to the Protector Somerset in 1549, when the Princess Elizabeth was 15, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt says: “I do verily believe that there hath been some secret promise between my Lady, Mistress Ashley, and the Cofferer” [Sir Thomas Parry] “never to confess to death, and if it be so, it will never be gotten of her, unless by the King’s Majesty or else by your Grace.” In his _Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth_ Mr. Frank A. Mumby writes of this:--