After Jane Seymour’s death in childbirth, Parliament, bowing to Henry’s will, recognized all three of his children, conceived in various wombs, thus establishing the final order of Tudor succession: first Edward, son of Jane; then Mary, daughter of Catherine; and finally, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne. Crowned in 1558 at the age of twenty-five, Elizabeth I restored Protestantism, revived her father’s Act of Supremacy, and reigned over England for forty-five glorious years. In light of the tragic consequences of her parents’ sexual excesses, which had typified European nobility in their time—the
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