The Princess Mary evinced great regard for her sister Elizabeth; and when the brutal King Henry deposed both these princesses from their rights of succession, and stigmatized them as illegitimate, and sent word to Mary that she should no longer treat Elizabeth as princess, Mary wrote a letter to her father, the king, in which she kindly mentioned Elizabeth thus: “My sister Elizabeth is in good health, and such a child, too, as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.” Anne of Cleves was granted permission to see Elizabeth, even after her divorce, providing Elizabeth did not address her as queen; and all of the wives of Henry VIII. evinced great love for the Princess Elizabeth; and through the influence of Catherine Parr, Henry VIII. restored Elizabeth to her right of succession, although the act which pronounced her illegitimate remained forever unrepealed; and after she had become queen of England, she refrained from requiring Parliament to repeal those acts of her father which had declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void; and she contented herself with an act of Parliament which declared in general terms her rights of succession to the throne. While the youthful Edward VI. was king, the Princess Elizabeth was involved in certain questionable relations with the Lord High Admiral Seymour, who had married the Queen-Dowager Catherine, a few weeks after the death of Henry VIII. Upon the death of Catherine, a year afterwards, Lord High Admiral Seymour aspired to the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. There is no doubt that Elizabeth loved Seymour; and, as she acknowledged, would have married him if the consent of the royal executors could have been obtained; but as such an alliance was considered beneath her, Elizabeth was shut up for a time in a sort of imprisonment, and the lord high admiral was conveniently disposed of by being led to the scaffold. It is amusing to note that the hand of this much-courted and confirmed-spinster queen was once offered by Henry VIII. to a Scottish earl of equivocal birth and indifferent reputation, who actually declined the honor. But Elizabeth, when queen of England, proudly refused earls, dukes, and even kings, though it must be confessed she served the king of Sweden, who was one of her most constant suitors, rather meanly; for this royal lover sent her a magnificent present consisting of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ships’ loads of the most precious articles his country could produce, which princely gift Elizabeth most graciously received, but wrote to this ardent lover, that she anxiously hoped he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitless voyage,—rather strange royal etiquette, to receive the suitor’s gift and then reject the giver. Regarding Elizabeth’s mental acquirements, her learned preceptor, Roger Ascham, thus wrote:—