Quick review: King Henry VIII had three surviving children from his first three wives: Mary I, Elizabeth I and Edward VI. The girls went in and out of the line of succession with dizzying speed by various acts of Parliament, spurred on by the king's whims and marital status. When the king died, Edward VI, at the age of nine, became king, although he never really ruled. When it became apparent that he was on his deathbed, he named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey to succeed him, rather than either of his sisters. Mary, with powerful supporters, was able to depose Lady Jane Grey and take the crown for herself in less than a month. However, Elizabeth also had powerful supporters and soon Thomas Wyatt led a rebellion in an effort to depose Mary and enthrone Elizabeth. The conspirators were rounded up and imprisoned and it is here we take up the story.
Elizabeth was suspected of being involved in Wyatt's rebellion, a natural assumption I suppose, since she was the one to gain by it's successful conclusion. Well, she and all those Protestants who were being persecuted by her sister. She was subsequently arrested and taken by boat down the Thames River to the Tower of London.
The boat would have docked here (water from the river covered the gravel here) and the princess climbed up the stairs in a heavy downpour of rain, all the while vehemently protesting she was not a traitor and was indeed loyal to her sister Queen Mary.
"Here stands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed on these stairs."
Princess Elizabeth
She was then led to the tower where she was to be imprisoned. She couldn't have helped but think about the fate of her mother, Anne Boleyn, at the tower many years ago, when Elizabeth was just a toddler. And she probably walked right past the scaffold where Lady Jane Grey had been recently executed.
She was held in the Bell Tower and took her exercise on the battlements between Beauchamp Tower and Bell Tower. Eventually, she was released from the Tower when Thomas Wyatt confessed that Elizabeth had no part in the rebellion. She was then put on house arrest at the manor of Woodstock, for her own safety as much as for quashing any possibility of another rebellion.
Many years later, when it was apparent she would never bear a child, Queen Mary named Elizabeth as her heir. When she did indeed die about a month later, Elizabeth heard the news of her sister's death, knelt down and whispered: "This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." At the age of twenty-five she became Queen Elizabeth I.
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