Michael L Nash considers the legal pitfalls of Mary Tudor & Queen Elizabeth II
This week marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of our first Queen regnant, Mary Tudor, the elder daughter of Henry VIII. After the paralysing disappointment of the birth and death of a boy and heir in 1511, Mary was born in the Palace of Greenwich on 18 February 1516. She was baptised the following Wednesday in the monastery of Greyfriars with all the solemnity due to her rank.
Rather different was the birth and baptism of the future Elizabeth II in 1926. She was born in a private house at 17 Bruton Street, a few yards from Bond Street on 21 April 1926. She was christened by Dr Cosmo Gordon Lang, then Archbishop of York, in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace on 29 May 1926.
Both the house in which she was born, and the chapel where she was christened, were destroyed in the Blitz. When she became Queen, Elizabeth II rebuilt the chapel, which is now the Queen’s Gallery; a little of the old chapel was
