Elizabeth preferred to listen rather than talk. She soon left Edward’s court and returned to Hertfordshire, keeping to herself, studying French, Greek, Italian, and Latin, and passing the time reading, sewing, and playing a type of harpsichord called a virginal. Few visited her at Hatfield House.

Times remained uncertain in England. Three years after his brother’s execution, Ned Seymour lost his title as Lord Protector to the ambitious John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland. With the title, Seymour also lost his head. Casualties of the Tudor reign continued to rise. Meanwhile, the country grew increasingly Protestant, exacerbating relations with powers on the Continent. Spain was a continuing nemesis, as was France. Four times the size of England with four times as many people, France also controlled Scotland, England’s Catholic neighbor to the north on the small island they shared. Mary Queen of Scots, as a grandniece of Henry VIII, had her own distant claim to the throne of England.

During her brother’s reign, Elizabeth had little cause to complain. Edward treated her affectionately, welcoming her on occasional visits to court. They took lessons together, and once she embroidered a shirt for him. Edward had given Hatfield House to Dudley, who graciously passed it on to Elizabeth in exchange for lesser lands that she already owned, so now her residence was also her own home; she was Lady Elizabeth, a landed princess with an ample income and obvious talents. The scandalous rumors about her soon dispelled, and she was again widely respected as a modest, chaste and accomplished English noblewoman.

On July 6, 1553, King Edward VI, just sixteen, died, probably of tuberculosis. Elizabeth was fond of her half-brother and grieved the loss. But his death signaled another prolonged crisis for the Lady Elizabeth.

At court, it was thought that the young king’s demise would bring the downfall of Lord Protector Dudley, who was widely disliked in England. But Dudley had made preparations, hoping to forestall the coronation of the Catholic Mary and put someone he could control on the throne – a description that obviously ruled out Elizabeth, who would be nobody’s puppet. When it became clear that King Edward’s illness was serious, Dudley married his son Guildford to one of Henry VIII’s grandnieces, Lady Jane Grey. Henry had formalized her claim when he established the order of succession to follow him, putting Jane immediately after Elizabeth. Then Dudley persuaded the ailing Edward to name Lady Jane heir to the throne.

The logic of that move was somewhat tortuous. In reality, the Protestant Edward was denying Mary the throne because she was Catholic, and he thought his people wouldn’t stand for her. Legally, however, her religion wouldn’t rule her out, so he cited her illegitimacy. Happily for Dudley’s schemes, the objection that barred Mary also applied to Elizabeth; and so it came about that Lady Jane Grey became Queen of England.

Jane Grey, four years younger than her childhood friend Elizabeth, was an intelligent young woman, one who had actually been educated for the monarchy. Taking her claim seriously, Jane’s parents made sure her upbringing was strict and that she was well-versed in proper etiquette and the manners befitting a princess. She was also encouraged to learn a number of foreign languages, for the prospect of someday being married to a foreigner for political gain always had to be considered. Jane turned out to be a natural student and was soon proficient in a number of languages, including Latin. She once confessed to a visitor that her love of language was due mainly to the strong affection she felt for her private tutor. Her parents, she said, were such harsh disciplinarians - always critical, teasing and taunting, pinching and poking - that she spent every minute she could with her teacher, who was gentle and encouraging. She said that apart from her studies, her life was a daily torture of grief, trouble, fear, and suffering.

This bright, learned girl was also malleable and, Dudley assumed, an ideal proxy. When Edward died, however, she balked at Dudley’s plans. Dudley had arranged to keep the king’s death a secret for a few days to give himself time to establish her as queen. Jane, however, was shocked when he came to her home with a contingent of men to escort her to London. But her father and her new husband urged her to go, and in the end, she did.

Dudley had underestimated the thirty-seven-year-old Mary, who was small and delicate, but no coward. He had summoned both Mary and Elizabeth to London, planning to lock them up to forestall any coups on their behalf. Elizabeth, alert to the precariousness of her position, sent word that she was too ill to travel. She kept quiet during the rest of the crisis and, in so doing, kept her head. But Mary was on her way to London when she got word that Edward was dying and that Dudley’s message had been a trap. She turned around and headed for East Anglia, one of the centers of her support. Dudley tried in vain to have her captured, and she wrote the royal council demanding the throne as her rightful heritage.

In the confusing days after Edward’s death became widely known, there was growing support throughout England for Mary to take the throne, despite a widespread concern that she would insist on restoring Catholicism. Apparently, the public remained convinced that Henry’s original design for the succession should be followed, and it was now Mary’s turn. One after another, towns and counties proclaimed their loyalty to Queen Mary. Dudley gathered an army of three thousand men and set out to quell the revolt. But back in London, the council renounced Dudley and declared that Mary was queen. Abruptly, Jane was transferred from the royal chambers in the Tower to a prisoner’s cell. She feared for her head, and she was soon tried and sentenced to death. But as the months passed, Mary seemed inclined to mercy, understanding that Jane had been duped by Dudley into going along with his plan. Still under a death sentence, Jane remained in the tower.

The new queen was, in many respects, a kind woman, but her piety trumped pragmatic considerations of state, and her penchant for executing Protestants would soon make her hated as “Bloody Mary.” Her distaste for Elizabeth traced to her hatred for Anne Boleyn and a sense of superiority over the daughter of a commoner. Mary hated their father and revered her mother, the aristocrat whom Henry had cast off. She declined to attend Edward’s funeral because it was a Protestant service, choosing instead to remember him in a private Catholic Mass.

Elizabeth took pains to ingratiate herself with her half-sister, writing her congratulations and traveling to London in time to be part of Mary’s triumphant entrance to the city. Dismounting from her horse, Elizabeth knelt before Mary in the road – on which Mary dismounted in return, raised Elizabeth to her feet and embraced her warmly. At Mary’s coronation, Elizabeth was invited to join the procession to Westminster Abbey. She rode in a silver carriage, drawn by six horses.

But the long enmity between the sisters wouldn’t die, and in future months, Mary’s attitude toward Elizabeth veered from friendship to suspicion and back. It didn’t help that Elizabeth, now twenty and widely admired, reminded people of Henry, from her hearty laughter to her flaming red hair. Mary intended to return England to Catholicism, but she knew Elizabeth was at least tolerant of Protestantism and, therefore, posed a risk. Yet Mary let her half-sister live. She did the same, temporarily, for Jane Grey. She was less lenient with John Dudley, who lost his head despite his eleventh-hour claim that he had been a Catholic all along.

This whole episode played out over the course of only six convulsive weeks of 1553. Edward had died in early July, and Dudley was executed at the Tower on August 22.

Taking no chances, Elizabeth began wearing a nun’s habit and declared that her faith was in flux. She asked for instruction from a Catholic priest. On the altar of her private chapel, she installed candles and burned incense. But the fact of her birth and her link to the throne, spelled out in Henry’s will, kept her in the center of many a high drama.

Some of that drama was orchestrated from distant shores. When Charles V of Spain, also the Holy Roman Emperor and arguably the most powerful person in Europe after the pope, learned of Edward VI’s death, he launched an effort to marry his son Philip to Mary. Philip, whose Portuguese wife had recently died, was a prize – young, good-looking, and charming, the most sought-after prince in Europe. He was also a devout Catholic. When Charles sent an ambassador to London to propose the union, Mary warmed to the idea. Philip stood to inherit the throne of what was, thanks to Spain’s plunder of the New World, the richest country in the world. Besides, Mary Queen of Scots, still a potential rival as Queen of England, had plans to marry the son of the king of France. By marrying Philip, Mary could stay one step ahead of her cousin.

Mary’s advisers also liked the idea of the marriage, but they insisted she suspend her efforts to return England to Catholicism, at least for the time being. Protestantism had taken hold in much of England, a devout tide that Mary never recognized but would have trouble reversing. Marrying Philip would only inflame the resistance to Mary’s reforms. Eventually, she agreed, making an effort to assure the public of their religious freedom while she secretly devised a wedding. Word of the planned union, however, spread anyway, and it was not a popular idea.

People feared that Philip would come to England as its king, and the country would be swallowed by Spain. The House of Commons organized a committee to oppose the marriage and sent twenty of its members to call on Mary and formally ask her not to marry a foreigner. In no mood to take dictation on personal matters from her subjects, Mary responded by dissolving the Parliament. Public alarm deepened.

In an effort to quiet the opposition, Mary dispatched a delegation to Spain to negotiate a more favorable deal. There would be a formal marriage pact requiring a large cash payment to Mary and including strict stipulations about titles, lines of succession, powers of appointment, and, most important, assurances of England’s absolute sovereignty and independence from Spain. It was also stipulated that if Mary were to die before Philip, he would forgo all rights and claims in England.

News of these arrangements, however, did little to quell public opposition to the marriage. It didn’t help that the royal court was already rife with conspiracy and deception. The kingdom was fragile and Parliament was weak. The order of royal succession remained a fluid and dangerous vortex of intrigue. Being on the wrong side of events could easily cost a man’s – or a woman’s – life.

Thomas Wyatt was one who found himself on Mary’s wrong side. A wealthy Protestant landowner, he was outraged by her plan to marry Philip. In truth, however, the proposed wedding was only one of the grievances Englishmen were increasingly feeling. Edward’s council had left the country’s economy in disarray and the royal coffers empty. After a series of bad harvests, prices were rising, the currency was nearly worthless, and credit on the Continent was impossible to find. The Spanish marriage might actually alleviate those woes by bringing in money, but it reeked of foreign dominance and stuck in the English craw.

Wyatt was one of several noblemen who attempted to organize militias in various parts of the country, hoping to enter London and take the capital by force. When it was discovered that the Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane Grey’s father, was conspiring with Wyatt, many became convinced that the whole point of the uprising was to depose Mary and put Jane back on the throne.

Wyatt succeeded in raising a substantial force of men, some 4,000 strong, but when he advanced on London, Mary, who had no standing army to send out to meet him, barricaded the only bridge into the city and retreated to the Guildhall, where she placed herself under the protection of London authorities. This bought enough time for her to raise a more organized force while Wyatt looked for a way across the Thames. When he finally rode into the city, he found his troops were badly outnumbered and trapped in London’s narrow streets. Mary sent Wyatt a message, begging him to surrender in order to prevent further bloodshed. Devastated by his failure, Wyatt gave himself up. When the Duke of Suffolk learned of this, he hid in the house of one of his servants, only to be quickly found and sent to the Tower.

Though seemingly on the sidelines during the uprising, Lady Jane Grey - the title clung to her - was soon implicated in the plot. Mary now saw that although Jane might have been a puppet in Dudley’s plot, she was too dangerous as a potential figurehead for rebels to be allowed to live. Two days after Wyatt was captured, Jane was informed that her death sentence would be carried out. Initially stunned, she composed herself and admitted her guilt. Jane went to the executioner with what witnesses agreed was grace and courage, given the even more gruesome than usual proceedings. Jane’s husband, also condemned, was beheaded shortly before her – she saw his headless body from her Tower window. Her father the Duke of Suffolk lost his head five days later.

Wyatt was given an actual trial, plus a few sessions on the rack, in the hope that he would implicate Elizabeth in the plot. He didn’t, however, and in the end was beheaded and quartered on Tower Hill, an area adjacent to the Tower proper that was often used for executions. In all, about ninety of the conspirators were executed there, most of them hanged.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, was ordered to go to London. Fearing that she would be implicated in the rebellion, she replied that she could not go because she was sick. The queen’s own physician, along with an armed escort, was sent to Hatfield House to fetch her. When the caravan arrived in London, Elizabeth pulled back the drapes on her litter so everyone could see her. She was a sight – gleaming red hair and a face as pale as the white dress signaling her virginity. Rumors swirled that Elizabeth had been poisoned or was pregnant.

At the administrative palace Whitehall, in the center of London, Elizabeth demanded an audience with Mary, but the queen refused. Elizabeth was paid little respect or courtesy and was confined to her Spartan rooms.

Some of Wyatt’s confederates had testified that Elizabeth had, in fact, backed the rebellion. Mary wanted to believe her half-sister was guilty because, like Jane Grey, she represented a continuing threat and because Mary also believed it wouldn’t take much for England’s Protestants to rise up to put Elizabeth on the throne.

Elizabeth, surely alert to Mary’s fears, pleaded for an audience with the queen; again denied, she insisted on permission to write her. In the letter, Elizabeth passionately professed her innocence. There was no response from her half-sister. Then, late one night, Elizabeth was ordered out of bed and told to dress. She said goodbye to her maids. “Pray for me,” she said, “for I know not whether you will ever see me more.”

As Elizabeth arrived at the Tower, she began to weep, which she rarely did. It was a bleak, rainy day when the barge pulled up to the steps that led to the Traitors’ Gate. Adamant that she was no traitor, Elizabeth objected to being put off there. The guards led her up the steps anyway and into a courtyard, where she called out to the waiting warders, “I pray you all bear me witness that I come in as no traitor but as true a woman to the Queen's Majesty as any as is now living.” But she wouldn’t enter the tower, throwing herself onto the ground and refusing to move. Better to sit miserably in the cold rain than follow her guards to an evil place, she reasoned. She knew that few who entered there ever came out alive; just six weeks previously, Jane Grey had been beheaded there. Eventually, however, sympathetic prison officials coaxed her inside to a surprisingly habitable set of rooms.

Like Jane’s execution, Elizabeth’s imprisonment was largely the work of Simon Renard, ambassador to London from the Spanish court. He wanted to make sure that when Philip arrived in England to be married, he would be safe from Protestant rebels. Philip himself, however, was more sensitive to English politics; he knew that jailing Elizabeth would be unpopular and didn’t want to be blamed for it. So he wrote Mary urging her to set her sister free. The evidence against Elizabeth never amounted to much, and gradually Mary allowed her half-sister freedom to move about the Tower grounds. After some months, Elizabeth was transferred again, although Mary still refused to see her. Elizabeth was moved from one country manor to another, effectively under house arrest.

When Philip arrived in England, he landed in a thunderstorm. Despite the pelting rain, he was regal in black velvet and silver lace, weighed down around his neck with gold and gems, all offsetting his blond beard and close-cropped fair hair. On the dock, he drew his sword, and for no apparent reason, brandished it as he strode around, waving to the crowd. They had no idea what to make of him, but, in general, Philip conducted himself well.

London had been scoured clean for Philip’s arrival. On London Bridge, the rotting heads of executed criminals were removed from the pikes. Though he didn’t speak a word of English, the bridegroom showed no emotion when he saw his bride. Ten years his senior, she was small and slight, visibly aged by her years in political limbo, looking perpetually astonished with her thin eyebrows and tiny brown eyes.

The wedding duly came off, in a splendid ceremony in Winchester Cathedral. For Philip it was a marriage of convenience and political advantage, but Mary seemed truly enamored of her husband, who made it clear that he was in charge. They spoke to each other in Italian, the one language they shared. Mary conceded his authority in all things, but nothing seemed to make him happy; his heart, she understood, was elsewhere. Still, he did his best to secure his claim to the English throne. A rare smile creased Philip’s face when, in November 1554, Mary informed him that she was expecting a child.

The chances of Elizabeth becoming queen were dwindling. More ominously, having an heir might make Philip less inclined to keep Elizabeth alive. Then he did something surprising: He played matchmaker.

Young and handsome, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, was Philip’s cousin. He presided over an old and prominent family, but he had two major disadvantages: He was neither wealthy nor English. Savoy had long been occupied by France, and Philibert had distinguished himself in battling the French in alliance with Philip and the Habsburgs of the Holy Roman Empire. If he married Elizabeth and if Philip’s own line should fail, her path to the throne would be secured and England would be a Habsburg dependency and the source of new armies to defeat France.

No one knows the details of Elizabeth’s and Philibert’s brief and tentative flirtation. Elizabeth had mastered the art of evasion, and her specialty was evading matrimony. She simply said no, insisting that she was honored by the proposal, but would not be wed to a man she had not met – a rather unusual objection for royalty. Hoping to spark a romance, Philip arranged a meeting of the two in London. She complained of poor health and said she couldn’t travel, but Philip repeated his command more firmly, and Elizabeth obeyed. But in the end, she remained firm in her refusal to marry and returned to Hatfield.