In Paris, Elizabeth’s accession was greeted with unconcealed scorn. The Guises swiftly proclaimed their niece to be “queen of England, Scotland and Ireland,” challenging Elizabeth’s right to succeed her elder sister on the grounds of bastardy and Protestantism. As she had indeed been declared illegitimate by act of Parliament in 1536, and since Mary Tudor’s most vaunted policy had been to restore Catholicism, returning England to the papal fold after Henry VIII’s break with Rome and burning more than three hundred Protestants at the stake for their faith, the Guise claim was not so outrageous.
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