Elizabeth

by Philippa Jones

  There is no confirmation that the new clothes, or cloth to make them, ever arrived, but Lady Margaret’s plea for a simple diet for the child, to be served in her private quarters, was addressed. On 16 August, Sir John Shelton wrote to Cromwell, ‘I perceive by your letter the King’s pleasure that my lady Elizabeth shall keep her chamber and not come abroad.’ Shelton also requested money to buy food for the household; the King’s warrant had not arrived on time.13

  It is impossible to know the extent to which Elizabeth may have been affected by her parents’ divorce and her mother’s death. Two particular events possibly made some impression on the young child, though. The first occurred in January 1536, when Catherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton. As Ambassador Chapuys reported to Charles V:

  The King dressed entirely in yellow from head to foot, with the single exception of a white feather in his cap. His bastard daughter Elizabeth was triumphantly taken to church to the sounds of trumpets and with great display. Then, after dinner, the King went to the Hall where the Ladies were dancing, and there made great demonstrations of joy, and at last went to his own apartments, took the little bastard in his arms, and began to show her first to one, then to another, and did the same on the following days.14

  A second event occurred only a few months later, when, just days before her arrest, Henry VIII was angry at Anne Boleyn. Whether Elizabeth was old enough to recall it is unclear, but after she came to power in 1558, it was brought to her attention by Alexander Ales, a member of an embassy to the German Princes, who wrote to Elizabeth claiming: ‘… I saw the sainted Queen your mother, carrying you, still a little baby, in her arms, and entreating the most serene King your father … The faces and gestures of the speakers plainly showed the King was angry …’15

  Elizabeth was certainly aware of a change in attitude towards her. She is credited with saying to Sir John Shelton, who had been deputed to explain to her the changes in her lifestyle following her mother’s death, ‘How haps it, Governor, yesterday my Lady Princess, and today but my lady Elizabeth?’16

  Margaret Bryan, Kate Champernowne, Blanche Parry and others, still remained part of her immediate circle, but Elizabeth would never set eyes on her mother again, and she would see her father far less frequently. Her sister, Mary, was more kind to her, it was true, now that they were both victims of Court intrigue. And though both would have to cope with a string of further stepmothers, Jane Seymour was certainly considerate towards both Mary and Elizabeth.

  There were to be further changes in the Royal Court. In March 1537, Jane announced that she was pregnant, to Henry’s great pleasure. On 16 September, the Queen retired to Hampton Court, and on 9 October she went into labour, giving birth to a baby son, Edward, the new heir to the throne, at 2 a.m. on 12 October 1537.

  The Court and the city of London immediately burst into celebration. People poured into the streets to celebrate the news. Pork, supplied by the Court, was roasted over open fires and the water conduits ran with ale and wine. A special song was written and printed that soon flooded the city:

  ‘God save King Henry with all his power,

  And Prince Edward, that goodly flower,

  With all his lords of great honour …’17

  On 15 October, the christening of the new prince took place in the chapel at Hampton Court. Henry and Jane remained in their apartments while the splendid procession wound its way down to the chapel. Among all the magnificence, the young Elizabeth played her part, carrying the christening robe. As she was barely four, Edward Seymour, Jane’s brother, carried her. On the way out, as the christened Prince Edward was carried back to his parents, little Elizabeth walked hand-in-hand with her sister Mary, also the baby’s godmother, helped by Blanche Herbert, who supported the train of her elaborate robes.

  This was another event that Elizabeth would remember: the kindness of her sister, the emotional tears of her father, the frailty of her stepmother, not yet recovered from the ordeal of childbirth, obliged to watch the procession from her rooms while wrapped in velvet and furs. A week later it was all over: on 24 October, the 29-year-old Jane Seymour died of puerperal fever – a form of septicaemia that often resulted after childbirth in those times. On 12 November, Henry VIII’s third wife and the mother of his only legitimate son was given a magnificent funeral, attended by the whole of the Tudor Court. It may be safely assumed that Elizabeth was there: her sister, Mary, headed the cortege as Chief Mourner.

  Henry VIII was not in a hurry to choose his next Queen: he now had a legitimate male heir. He lavished love and care on his son, and also took time to consider how his daughters, illegitimate or not, could be used as political assets in terms of future alliances through marriage. Henry’s priority was to prevent an alliance between the great Catholic powers of France and Spain. With this in mind, he offered himself in marriage to various French princesses, and then tried to negotiate a marriage with the niece of Charles V.

  As for his daughters, in 1538, there was a suggestion that Elizabeth, now aged five, might marry one of Charles V’s nephews, either Maximilian, heir to the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, or Charles, Archduke of Austria. This political manoeuvring was not taken too seriously despite a report by Chapuys in March 1538 that he had seen Elizabeth and she was ‘certainly very pretty’.18 Charles V might have wanted an alliance with England, but not in this way.

  Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s childhood seemed to be progressing well. In December 1539, Sir Thomas Wriothesley was sent to see the six-year-old Elizabeth at Hertford Castle, where she was spending Christmas. He brought messages from her father, who wished her and her household a happy Christmas. Sir Thomas reported back favourably:

  When I had done with her Grace [Mary], I went then to my Lady Elizabeth’s Grace, and to the same made the King’s Majesty’s most hearty commendations, declaring that his Highness desired to hear of her health and sent her his blessing. She gave humble thanks, enquiring again of his Majesty’s welfare, and that with as great a gravity as she had been forty years old. If she be no worse educated than she now appeareth to me, she will prove of no less honour to womanhood than shall beseem her father’s daughter.19

  With Prince Edward’s birth, several changes had been made to Elizabeth’s daily routine. Lady Margaret Bryan had left to become Edward’s Governess. Blanche Herbert was now head of the household and Kat Champernowne became Elizabeth’s Governess. These two women, in particular, provided stability and emotional support for the child. Blanche only left Elizabeth some 10 years later, when she retired, while Kat would remain a loyal companion for life.

  Elizabeth was to have three more stepmothers, but there is no evidence that she was ever ill-treated by any of them. Anne of Cleves, a German noblewoman who became Henry VIII’s fourth wife in January 1540, went out of her way to befriend her stepdaughters and remained on friendly terms with Mary and Elizabeth even after her brief seven-month marriage to the King had been annulled.

  Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, who he wedded immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves, was said to be poorly educated, selfish and foolish. It appears that she got on badly with Mary who, she said, failed to treat her with ‘the same respect as her two predecessors’ (Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves).20 Catherine tried to have two of Mary’s maids, who presumably offended her, sent away from Court. It also cannot have helped that Mary was three years older than her stepmother, and that she was well-educated, beautifully mannered and the daughter of Spanish royalty. She had very little in common with a poor relation from a nouveau-noble family who was barely able to read or write.

  Catherine Howard, however, was a close relation of young Elizabeth. Catherine and Anne Boleyn had been first cousins. Some accounts suggest that Queen Catherine made a gift of some small items of inexpensive jewellery to Elizabeth and also invited the girl to sit opposite her at table, just as Queen Jane had done for Mary. However, as Catherine was only Queen of England for 16 months and spent a large proportion of t
hat time away from London under arrest, it is hard to gauge exactly what relationship the two had, if they had one at all.

  It is clear, however, that Catherine Howard’s beheading for infidelity in 1542 had a lasting impression on the eight-year-old Elizabeth. Many years later, Robert Dudley, who was the same age as Elizabeth and a page to the King at the time, told the French Ambassador that Elizabeth had announced, ‘I will never marry.’21 He sighed as he recalled her words.

  The arrest, trial and execution of Catherine Howard, her mother’s cousin, must have prompted Elizabeth to recall the circumstances of Anne Boleyn’s death. Kat Champernowne may have used the occasion to tell Elizabeth about her mother’s death, explaining the political context to ease the horror of Anne Boleyn’s condemnation. Although she rarely mentioned her mother, Elizabeth took one of her emblems as her own: a crowned white falcon perched on a tree stump from which grew red and white roses. The Chequers Ring, which is supposed to have belonged to Elizabeth, also still exists; it is hinged and opens to show tiny portraits of Elizabeth and a second lady who looks very similar to Anne Boleyn.

  Elizabeth’s childhood experiences may explain why she never took the final step to marriage: refusing to put herself wholly in the power of another. Even at her tender age, Elizabeth’s vision of married life must have been tainted by her father’s treatment of his various wives: Catherine of Aragon had come to a strange land to be pushed aside and left to die in poverty because she failed to have a son. Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, had been beheaded for treason, while Jane Seymour, her dear stepmother, had died in childbirth. Anne of Cleves had been abandoned by Henry, seemingly on a whim, and now history was repeating itself with Catherine Howard’s imprisonment and execution.

  Meanwhile, Henry continued his political manoeuvring in planning alliances for his son, Edward, and his daughters. After the Scottish King James V died a week after his daughter Mary’s birth in 1542, leaving the baby Queen (Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542–67), Henry had taken an interest in the young girl, thinking to unite Scotland and England through marriage. He immediately entered into negotiations with Mary’s Regent, James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, pressing for the marriage of Mary to his five-year-old son, Prince Edward.

  To sweeten the negotiations, Henry suggested that the Regent’s son, James Hamilton, might marry the young Elizabeth. As Regent, Hamilton Senior, was the next heir to the Scottish throne should Mary die, thus if both marriages took place, whatever occurred, Scotland and England would eventually unite. The negotiations later faltered when Hamilton Senior attempted to marry Mary, Queen of Scots to his son James, and in 1548, they failed completely when Marie of Guise, the Dowager Queen, took her five-year-old daughter to France and arranged for her betrothal to the three-year-old French Dauphin, François.

  Although busy plotting marriages for his children, Henry did not give up on his own needs. In July 1543, he married for the last time, making Catherine Parr his sixth wife. Elizabeth was nearly 10 years of age at the time of their marriage, and Catherine, of all Henry’s wives, had the greatest impact on her. She was a well-educated and intelligent woman, and she formed an immediate bond with both of her stepdaughters. She knew Mary already: as children they had had lessons together, as her mother had been an attendant of Catherine of Aragon.

  A contemporary Spanish writer described Catherine Parr as ‘quieter than any of the young wives the King had had, and as she knew more of the world she always got on pleasantly with the King, and had no caprices, and paid much honour to Madam Mary and the wives of the nobles.’22 Catherine and Mary often wrote to each other, exchanging gifts and even lending one another servants. Their friendship surmounted their religious beliefs: Mary was an uncompromising Catholic, as her later reign would illustrate quite bloodily, and Catherine, a dedicated Protestant.

  Not only did Catherine do much to reconcile Henry with his daughters, but she likely influenced the Act of Succession passed by Parliament in 1543 to restore Mary and Elizabeth’s succession to the throne, behind their brother, Edward. Catherine also acted as Regent when Henry went on campaign to France from July to September 1544 to attack the French city of Boulogne.

  Catherine was responsible for the family while the King was away. In late summer, she took the children to Hampton Court, where their education continued in earnest, particularly that of Elizabeth. Nicholas Udall, master of Eton and an editor of Greek and Latin translations, noted the increase in classical education for girls.23

  Before she joined her stepmother at Hampton Court, Elizabeth had written to her on 31 July 1544, bemoaning the fact that she had not seen Catherine or her father for some time, due to severe ill health. She asked the Queen to mention her to her father, the King, wished them both well and hoped that she would see them again as soon as possible:

  Inimical fortune, envious of all good and ever revolving human affairs, has deprived me for a whole year of your most illustrious presence, and, not thus content, has yet again robbed me of the same good; which thing would be intolerable to me, did I not hope to enjoy it very soon. And in this my exile I well know that the clemency of your Highness has had as much care and solicitude for my health as the King’s Majesty himself. By which thing I am not only bound to serve you, but also to revere you with filial love, since I understand that your most illustrious Highness has not forgotten me every time you have written to the King’s Majesty, which, indeed, it was my duty to have requested from you. For heretofore I have not dared to write to him. Wherefore I now humbly pray your most excellent Highness, that, when you write to his Majesty, you will condescend to recommend me to him, praying ever for his sweet benediction, and similarly entreating our Lord God to send him best success, and the obtaining of victory over his enemies, so that your Highness and I may, as soon as possible, rejoice together with him on his happy return. No less pray I God that he would preserve your most illustrious Highness; to whose grace, humbly kissing your hands, I offer and recommend myself …

  Your most obedient daughter, and most faithful servant, Elizabeth.24

  Elizabeth’s letter mixes affection and diplomacy remarkably well for one so young – she was 11 years old.

  The political situation at the time, particularly Henry VIII’s alliance with Charles V, raised the question of other possible dynastic marriages for Henry’s heirs. In 1545, a treaty between the two Kings included the proposal that Prince Edward marry Charles V’s daughter, Maria, and that Mary would marry Charles V himself (at 29 years of age, she was 16 years younger than Charles).25 It also mooted the idea of Elizabeth’s marriage to Charles V’s son and heir, Philip of Spain, although that failed to go beyond the initial stages of negotiation. Charles was polite, but not encouraging. Nine years later, Philip would come to make a far better match with the Tudors by wedding Mary, who had then become Queen of England (1553–58), and who also shared his Catholic faith.

  Queen Catherine had every reason to be proud of her stepchildren. Little Edward, around seven at the time, was developing well and was happy to call her ‘mother’, Mary was friendly and much happier now that Henry had married Catherine, and Elizabeth was already a notable scholar and shared Edward’s classes with Dr Richard Cox and Sir John Cheke. In 1544, Elizabeth was given her own tutor, William Grindall, and showed particular skill as a linguist; she was now fluent in Latin and Greek, in French and Italian, and was conversant in Spanish.

  In 1545, Elizabeth sent Catherine a book that she had handwritten herself, a translation from the French of The Glass or Mirror of the Sinful Soul by the French princess Margaret of Angoulême, with a cover she had herself embroidered. The following year, she presented Catherine with another personally embroidered and translated volume, How We Ought to Know God by Jean Calvin, and she gave her father a selection of his wife’s favourite prayers translated from English into Latin, French and Italian.

  These gifts were labours of love for Elizabeth, and an attempt to win the admiration and praise of the two people who mattered most to her per
sonal well-being. The letter Elizabeth wrote to accompany the book to Henry VIII illustrates her reverence for him:

  To the most illustrious and most mighty King Henry the Eighth, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and second to Christ, supreme head of the English and Irish Church, Elizabeth, his majesty’s most humble daughter, wishes all happiness, and begs his blessing. As an immortal soul is superior to a mortal body, so whoever is wise judges things done by the soul more to be esteemed and worthy of greater praise than any act of the body. And thus, as your majesty is of such excellence that none or few are to be compared with you in royal and ample marks of honour, and I am bound unto you as lord by the law of royal authority, as lord and father by the law of nature, and as greatest lord and matchless and most benevolent father by the divine law, and by all laws and duties I am bound unto your majesty in various and manifold ways, so I gladly asked, which it was my duty to do, by what means I might offer to your greatness the most excellent tribute that my capacity and diligence could discover. In the which, I only fear lest slight and unfinished studies and childish ripeness of mind diminish the praise of this undertaking and the commendation which accomplished talents draw from a most divine subject. For nothing ought to be more acceptable to a king, whom philosophers regard as a god on earth, than this labour of the soul, which raises us up to heaven and on earth makes us heavenly and divine in the flesh; and while we may be enveloped by continual and infinite miseries, even then it renders us blessed and happy.