he light at Greenwich Palace, where, says
Heywood, "she was born on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on
the eve of the Virgin's annunciation." The christening ceremony was
gorgeous and elaborate, but, with the downfall of her mother, Anne
Boleyn, she ceased to be treated as a princess. She seems to have owed
much to the judicious training of Lady Margaret Bryan, in whose charge
she was. Later, she was associated with Prince Edward, four years her
junior; both displayed an extraordinary precocity and capacity for
learning.

On Henry's death, she resided with his widow, Catharine Parr, who
married the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour. That ambitious nobleman,
brother of the Protector, certainly designed, when Catharine died, to
marry Elizabeth; an intention which was among the causes of his
execution under attainder. His relations with her had already been
unduly familiar, but there was no warrant for the scandalous stories
that were repeated; and although Elizabeth all her life was naturally
disposed to an excessive freedom of manners, she now became a pattern of
decorum. But she was probably more in love with Seymour, as a girl of
fifteen, than with anyone else in after life; though, on his death, she
called him "a man of much wit and very little judgement."

Ascham is full of praises of her learning and her wide reading, both in
Greek and Latin, which is displayed somewhat pedantically in her
letters; her propriety and simplicity of apparel in these days is in
curious contrast to the extravagances of her wardrobe in later life.

Mary treated her conspicuously as a sister; she refused, however, to
abjure her Protestantism. Her position became extremely difficult, as
the French, the Spaniards, and the Protestant party each sought to
involve her in plots for their own ends. These culminated in Wyat's
rebellion. The inevitable suspicions attaching to her caused her to be
lodged in the Tower; but, in spite of the machinations of the Spanish
party and the distrust of Mary, the evidence produced failed to warrant
her condemnation.

Yet she was kept in rigorous confinement, her life continuing to be in
danger for a month after Wyat himself had been executed. She was then
removed to Richmond, but refused to purchase liberty at the price of
marriage to a foreign prince, Philibert of Savoy--a scheme intended as a
cover for Mary's determination to marry Philip, the Prince of Spain.
Finally, she was transferred to Woodsto