After the death of Henry VIII, his only son Edward came to the throne but died young. Following Edward's death at sixteen, a struggle for power ensued between Henry's eldest daughter Mary and his niece Lady Jane Grey. Lady Jane assumed brief Queenship in the Tower of London while Mary claimed her own right to throne. England opted in favour of Henry's daughter Mary because of her direct line to the throne. She evicted Jane from the Tower, only to imprison her there shortly thereafter. A rebellion caused Mary to imprison Princess Elizabeth in order to prevent the possibility that Elizabeth would be placed on the throne. Elizabeth swore her innocence as she passed through the Tower's Traitor's Gate: "I pray you all good friends and fellows bear me witness that I come in no traitor, but as true a woman to the Queen's Majesty as any now living" (Rowse 75). She was kept in the tower for two months but would never forget the time spent there, and consequently would not enjoy residence within the Tower. Elizabeth's coronation procession led her from the grounds of the once foreboding Tower of London, as was customary. She was to inherit rule over a country that had been plagued with relgious tension and persecution, as the cells of the Tower's prisons showed. While restoring the Church of England during the Elizabethan Settlement, Elizabeth replaced Mary's prisoners with Catholic ones. For once, though, these imprisonments did not lead directly to execution. The issue of succession was also a pressing one because of the lack of direct royal lineage after Elizabeth. The nobility was not exempt from the Tower during her rule. Catherine Grey, Lady Jane's sister, married without royal consent and was imprisoned in the Tower with her husband where she bore two children. Elizabeth was displeased with Catherine's progeny, since the Greys represented a familiar threat to the Tudor throne; hence, Elizabeth declared the children illegitimate by annullment of the marriage. -- Althea Fletcher, 2000