A 'prince' is born to Henry VIII
Tudor England
The Tudor dynasty was founded in 1485 by Elizabeth's grandfather, Henry VII, when he emerged victorious after the Wars of the Roses. These were fought from 1455 to 1485 between the Houses of Lancaster and York, for the succession to the throne. The rival houses were united in 1486 by the marriage of the Lancastrian Henry VII to Elizabeth of York, which brought much-needed stability to the nation. However, the Tudor era would be coloured by rebellions, conspiracies, challenges to the succession and fear of further civil war.
William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1506–70) was one of the key military figures of the age and a brutal thug, who came to the attention of Henry VIII and served in his household. He was a 'smooth' people operator, with a canny ability to spot and support the person in power. The insecurity of the era and the fear of threats to the throne meant that people like Pembroke were necessary and powerful, and he became a leading figure in the governments of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The 1st Earl of Pembroke's armour provides a powerful statement of the military might of the nobility of the era and of the harsh, aggressive male-dominated world that Elizabeth was born into and would eventually rule.
Elizabeth's early years
Elizabeth Tudor was born at Greenwich Palace on 7 September 1533, to Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Both parents were confident that the child would be the male heir Henry so desperately wanted and a document had already been prepared announcing the arrival of the new prince. When Elizabeth was born, an 's' was quickly added to the word 'prince'.
Elizabeth was a disappointment to her father, who now had two daughters by two wives but still no son to secure the Tudor succession. Her half-sister, Mary, was born in 1516 to Henry's Spanish first wife, Katherine of Aragon. After 20 years of marriage and no son, Henry had tired of Katherine and fallen in love with Anne. The Pope refused to end his first marriage, so he severed ties with the Catholic Church in Rome and set himself up as the head of the church in England, in order to secure the annulment he needed to be able to marry Anne. In 1533, the marriage of Henry and Katherine was declared invalid, Mary was declared illegitimate and Anne was crowned Queen.
By 1536, Katherine was dead, Anne had still not produced a male heir and Henry was in love with Jane Seymour. Anne was to suffer an even more brutal fate than that of her predecessor. She was convicted of treason on trumped-up charges of multiple adultery, including incest with her brother. She was disgraced, divorced and beheaded at the Tower of London. Like Mary, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession.
Shortly after the execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry married Jane Seymour, who gave birth to Edward, the long-awaited prince and Henry’s last child, in 1537. Jane died shortly afterwards and three more wives followed. (See Wives of Henry VIII and their children [PDF file].)
Childhood
Henry's children were brought up together in various royal houses just outside London. Elizabeth was highly intelligent and received an excellent humanist education from some of the leading scholars of the day from St John's College, Cambridge. Although Mary remained a devout Catholic, Elizabeth and Edward were influenced by the Protestant views of their tutors and stepmother, Katherine Parr, whom Henry married in 1543.
Katherine, Henry's sixth and final wife, took a great interest in her stepchildren and made an effort to become close to them. Henry too began to take a greater interest in his daughters. In 1544, he had Mary and Elizabeth reinstated in the line of succession, after Edward, by an Act of Parliament.
The Portrait of Elizabeth I when Princess, painted around 1546, is the earliest existing solo portrait of Elizabeth. Elizabeth's rehabilitation as her 'father's daughter' is made clear by the Latin inscription in the top left which reads 'Elizabeth, daughter of the king of England'. The portrait was probably painted for Henry and the 13-year old Elizabeth is portrayed as the ideal princess – scholarly, regal and dignified.
Henry died the following year, 1547, and was succeeded by the nine-year old Edward, with his uncle, Edward Seymour, as Lord Protector. Although Edward and Elizabeth were close, her future was far from secure.