Q ueen Mary's death was announced by the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords on the morning of 17 November 1558.
'As it is most heavy and grievous to us,' he said, 'so have we no less cause another way to rejoice with praise to Almighty God for that He hath left unto us a true, lawful and right inheritrice to the crown of this realm, which is the Lady Elizabeth, of whose lawful right and tide we need not to doubt. Wherefore the Lords of this House have determined, with your assents and consents, to pass from hence into the palace, and there to proclaim the said Lady Elizabeth Queen of this realm.'
Nicholas Throckmorton had not waited to hear the new Queen proclaimed, but, bearing Mary Tudor's ring, had set out early that morning for Hatfield. The road was familiar to him, for he had travelled along it several times during the past weeks, but he was at some point overtaken by the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, come officially on behalf of the Council to deliver news of her accession to Queen Elizabeth and kiss her hand.
It was they who arrived first at Hatfield, a little before noon, and as they traversed the park they came across their new sovereign, impervious to the cold, seated under an oak tree (the remains of which are still preserved today at Hatfield House) reading the New Testament in Greek. As she saw the lords approaching, she stood up, realising that they brought her news of great import. Then they knelt before her and saluted her as queen of England.
Elizabeth was overcome with emotion and for some moments was unable to speak. At last, 'after a good time of respiration', she fell to her knees on the grass and quoted the Latin version of the 118th Psalm: 'A Dominefactum est illud et est mirabile in oculis nostris! - This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes!'