As a youthful woman, Elizabeth Tudor seemed to be the hapless daughter of an ill-fated mother, Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. With her half sister and brother, Elizabeth was moved from place to place and subjected to fluctuating harsh and pleasant treatment by her unpredictable father. Ironically, Elizabeth, who outlived Henry's other children, was considered by him an inadequate promise of a stable succession and reign and was, because of her sex, an inadvertent component in her mother's downfall. However, as Elizabeth I of England, she proved to be a singularly long-li…
