5.4 Personal Trial
In August 1537 the Queen was practicing her dancing with her ladies-in-waiting when she felt intense cramps; suddenly, blood rushed down the front of her gown. Anne collapsed in pain, screaming for her ladies to get help. The guards outside her chambers rushed in as her ladies yelled for a doctor. The King’s primary doctor was out at his estates visiting family, but another physician, Dr. William Tate, examined the Queen. Within only a few minutes he had diagnosed Anne as undergoing a severe miscarriage. He ordered her gently moved and that supplies be made ready for instant delivery of a stillborn fetus only a few months old. He also called for any midwife that was at court, and that the King be alerted as to the emergency.
He would try to deliver the child, but the situation was delicate. Anne was losing large amounts of blood very quickly and the doctor feared that her placenta was beginning to come lose. Should that happen, in combination with the blood loss, it was very likely that Anne could die; especially given her previous history with miscarriages.
The child, a girl, was instead delivered smoothly, but was stillborn. From contemporaneous descriptions it appeared to be about 7 or 8 inches long, and quite formed, making it about 24-25 weeks old. After the delivery the doctor delicately placed white linen inside the vaginal canal to slow the blood loss. The Queen was nearing passing out, a dangerous sign as death could be near if she lapsed into a coma. Her ladies kept her talking as the King entered the chambers demanding to know her status. He went straight to her bedside to hold her hand and keep her talking and focused. Due to the heavy blood loss, she was incoherent and speaking gibberish. The situation was perilous.
Thankfully, the doctor and her ladies-in-waiting Acted quickly and were able to prevent the placenta from coming out faster than it should. They were able to finish the delivery and within the hour the blood flow virtually stopped, thanks to the doctor’s quick thinking. Afterwards, Anne successfully answered questions as to her name, marital state, and the names of her children, testing her faculties. When he felt that the bleeding stopped and she was now safe, the doctor ordered a 48 hour watch on the Queen, and prescribed only fruits, no meats, and light breads for her stomach. She had just made it through a harrowing ordeal, and had nearly died.
The King was shown the stillborn girl, which he named Anne, and had the child buried immediately. Queen Anne refused to see the girl. After the experience, the Queen lapsed into a depression, taking months to recover, both emotionally and physically. Dr. Tate told her she stood a good chance of never being able to give birth again, after the damage this birth had caused.
While the Queen stayed in her chambers, the King plunged himself into work, as well as other diversions. This miscarriage severely rocked the marriage, at least for a time. Both parties were unable to come to terms with what had happened and return to life as normal for several weeks. Henry attempted to keep himself busy by having ordered the construction of five new warships and then the refortification of the country’s naval defenses, intensifying a worsening iron shortage. He also upped his hunting schedule, spending hours a day in riding away his cares in pursuit of game. Anne meanwhile spent her days locked away between bouts of sobbing and sleeping confusing her days and nights.
He also sought the temporary solace of a common courtesan, named Janelle, who was visiting from the French court. The affair did not last long; Janelle was not the most beautiful woman at court, but apparently she was the most skilled at using certain talents “to alleviate the woes of the powerful,” or so it was rumored. She was also allegedly the one time mistress of Charles V, but this rumor could never be proven. The affair with Janelle lasted less than a month.
Henry’s relationship with Cromwell, delicate at the best of times, now became tenser, causing Cromwell to rely more on his private friendship with Ambassador Chapuys, from whom Cromwell sought advice on how best to handle the King. Without Anne, his principal advisor, Henry was difficult to deal with and frequently shifted his purpose, often without explanation.
The Queen finally recovered from her physical ailments the last week of October, leaving her chambers to see her husband and apologize for being away from him so long. Naturally, he forgave her. She would leave court the first week of November to see her children and then she would be off to make good on her word to Ms. Astley at the orphanage. Henry had a tiara custom made of amethysts, gold, and Princess cut diamonds, to welcome Anne back upon her recovery. He wanted to show her that she had already done her duty with their son and he still loved her, despite their brief rift. Anne loved the tiara, it becoming her favorite accessory to wear that winter season.
5.5 Lessons at Home, Lessons for All
Her visit with the children went very well; in fact, she brought the Princess with her to the orphanage, encouraging her to play with the other children. This would be the first time the young Elizabeth had been around common children her own age. Elizabeth embraced many of the children quickly, often forgetting her place and asking to play with them, to which the Queen agreed, so long as she did not soil her dress. Anne and her ladies-in-waiting delivered blankets, clothing, and brought their entire royal kitchen staff to serve the orphans meals of thick breads and heavily salted game birds that would easily last a week. Her ladies also bathed them so their hygiene would be appropriate in Anne’s presence.
The Queen also made good on her promise to visit the children of St. Mary’s to oversee their education. Anne read to the children and taught them biblical stories such as that of the battle of David and Goliath, and—no doubt with deliberate intent—the story of Esther, who was chosen to replace a stubborn Queen and went on to save her people. After the reading lessons were complete, she met privately with the headmistress of the orphanage, Ms. Isabel Astley, as the children continued to play.
Ms. Astley, a former nun who had renounced her habit in order to run the orphanage, was from Paris and taught for nearly fourteen years in the French monasteries. Hers was a sad story. As a youth she had often moved from house to house, attempting to escape an abusive father in an unstable household with a mother powerless to stop him. She had fled her home on foot, at night, with neither food nor other resources, and left her three siblings behind to start a new life for herself. At her most desperate, she had discovered a monastery in the dark of night that came to shape her future.
Anne sympathized with the plight of the headmistress and the two women got on well, perhaps due to the Queen’s caring nature and her youthful affections for France. Anne pledged to return every month to visit with the children and ensure their lessons were proceeding as usual. She also pledged a monthly tour for the children to visit the palace to play with Elizabeth. This gesture alone, for a Princess to play with such lowly commoners, was quite unusual, and when she told Henry he immediately shut her down, railing at her about her place; the two did not speak for several days. It was quite a row. Anne attempted to stand her ground that they were children and should be allowed to play. As far as Henry was concerned, he was busy trying to reinforce Elizabeth’s legitimacy throughout Europe, and here Anne was, sullying her image by having her the playmate of the commons, a rumor certain to delight the Emperor and the Pope regarding her bastard status.
Anne saw the situation very differently. While she had not been raised a royal, her family had been one of status and she fondly recalled playing with local children without distinction. She did not wish to impose restrictions on her own children, believing it important to her daughter’s development to be around children her own age; being that there were so few other children at court, Anne thought the orphanage plan could prove an excellent outlet for the Princess to be around her peers and grow socially and emotionally. Additionally, the story of the headmistress’s own turbulent childhood and—literal—salvation by the church and proper education, sparked in Anne ideas of a broader effort that might use the new Church of England or strengthened state to bring greater knowledge to
the people.
While designed with the best of intentions, this scheme to mingle the royal heirs with the lower classes certainly proved her critics right in one respect. Anne’s greatest difficulties as Queen stemmed from her unwillingness to recognize and respect differences in social station—having been quite the social climber, herself—putting herself at odds with entrenched power structures. Her vastly different life experiences led her to view things extremely practically, at the expense of respecting customs and traditions upon which others depended. Meanwhile, her King husband’s role had always been tied to protecting these same institutions by fulfilling his duty to preserve the state and the existing social order. His desire to preserve his own supremacy allowed him to overturn the existing religious order in the name of his higher goal, but to throw out all tradition and overturn the feudal system itself, which relied upon strict class distinctions, was quite beyond him.
To come to a compromise with his wife Henry ordered that more of the courtiers’ children brought to court so that Elizabeth, and eventually the still infant Prince, could bond with fellow children as playmates. Anne, however, remained stubbornly committed to her cause, and pressed for her children to grow up better knowing the people they would someday rule by learning, first, as children. Ultimately, Anne would win the day, but the orphan children Elizabeth was allowed to directly interact with were hand chosen by Henry, and the visits were allowed only in a private room, with only Anne and her Lady Governess in attendance, to reduce the likelihood of a scandal.
Anne’s plan for the betterment of her own children, now executed, she refocused her thoughts on improving the education of the masses as well. Archbishop Cranmer, Tyndale, Henry Clifford the 2nd Earl of Cumberland, and Anne were all diligently working towards outlining a plan for the spread of educational reforms. The Earl was a trusted friend of Cranmer and an avid reformer, one of the first to embrace its principles. The first groups to be re-educated would be the children of the Kingdom, as these subjects had the least to un-learn (chiefly about the need to obey the Church of Rome) and thus who would be most easily taught. So soon after the recent calls for rebellion and revolution, however, this effort would require some acceptance and buy-in from the people. As popularizing an education program would take time, at Anne’s insistence, the orphans at St. Mary’s were used first as subjects upon whom to design their program. If successful, they could then alter their lesson planning for the nobility, the gentry and finally the commons.
Cranmer employed four of his clerks out of the basement at Westminster, John Elthsman, Leonard Davoy, Richard Mandigle and William Taylor, to begin reviewing all the technical, administrative and operational logistics involved in determining the costs involved to develop course content, textbooks, to select instructors, and to pick venues for instruction. Cranmer would focus on ensuring that content met the religious criteria outlined previously in the Ten Articles while Tyndale worked on developing standardized lesson books—written in English—that would be the most useful for both illiterate adults and for children.
It might seem surprising to learn that Cromwell had not been included in these sessions, but Anne’s official reasoning was that the minister was far too pre-occupied with his affairs running the country and he would be well informed in due course. The truth of the matter was that, after their falling out, she no longer trusted his counsel and feared that he would get to the King and possibly sabotage her plans before she could get to Henry and plead her case.
The nobles would prove to be the most difficult group to convince. Their entire power base relied on the ignorance of the commons and Anne feared that they would think her plan threatening to their entire way of life. Lord Rochford would keep his spies on the lookout for any mention of uprising so he might deal with each member of the court sufficiently. Bribes would be enough to ensure the temporary quiet support of most of them, so he secured a sufficient portion of his own fortune to be made available for such a purpose. He also suggested that the nobles’ children be the first to receive such education publicly, to win over the mothers of the upper classes, who heavily relied on their sons’ titles to ensure their own status.
Anne and Lord Rochford worked behind the scenes preparing the political maneuvering that would be essential to ensuring the success of their plan. Several drafts of their proposals to Parliament and the King were drawn up, two of which still survive. Meanwhile, Anne would advocate for the scheme directly to Henry, in private. Henry overall was receptive to the idea, but he too shared the nobles’ sense of concern that so instructing all children, especially the commons, would put at risk the current separation of classes. Anne knew how to bring lessons from home to the aid of supporting lessons for the people. She invited the children from the orphanage to serve as test subjects, and ask Henry to watch their reactions to the material and their eagerness to learn.
Children had always been a soft spot for the King and she knew how to play to his affections. She managed to convince him to hold the trial lesson for the orphan children at court, so long as the exhibition met his condition of privacy away from gossiping courtiers. Anne agreed and sent urgent dispatches out to Ms. Astley for the children to come to court the following week to begin their lessons. Her dispatch was delivered by two of her own ladies-in-waiting, along with a purse to pay for suitable clothing for the children to wear before the presence of the King. The ladies would also bathe them, fix their hair, and instruct them on their manners before they would be allowed in the royal presence.
Anne expressly commanded that the children were to arrive at the back palace gate, where the food and supplies were brought in, under cover of darkness. This would reduce the likelihood of gossipmongers among the courtiers noting the new arrivals. Should the nobles hear that the education plan that their own children were to undergo was designed using mere commoners, there would be an uproar and Anne’s entire plan could be placed in jeopardy. Archbishop Cranmer disguised his true purpose by preparing to claim that any orphan children at court were being hosted for charitable purposes, a plausible enough excuse given the King’s well known sentimental reaction to plays by such groups at events like Christmastide.
The first lesson was set to begin December 3rd, 1537, and Anne and her father met privately several times before that day to begin reviewing how they could use the program to better her people, and further inoculate themselves and their heirs against future enemies. Anne was excited to have the first group of children taught her version of Reformation principles. A dry run of the course was completed with Tyndale, Clifford, and Cranmer one final time before the lesson commenced. This lesson would consist of how to read and pronounce the letters of the English alphabet. The second lesson the following week, with practice in between, would consist of how to write one’s name. The third through sixth weeks, after the children had mastered their own names and the basics of the alphabet, would simply teach the principles of the Ten Articles and why their King was appointed by God to be both head of the state and of their Church. At Cranmer’s insistence, each lesson would end with an open forum for the children to ask questions, to ensure they all understood the material. The instructors also offered to make themselves available for private tutoring for those who needed additional training.
As they were not adults and did not understand the controversial, dangerous times they lived in, the children were even afforded more of a freedom to question and speak than their elders might have enjoyed, although they were of course strictly told to refrain from using foul language in front of their majesties. Since they were children, toys and other forms of propaganda were used to illustrate what was right and wrong. They would be allowed to play with the toys, touch the relics and other objects. All parties reviewed the lesson plan one last time and all were prepared for a moderately successful venture for the initial course. This set of orphans ranged in ages from four to fourteen, so they would have to try to find a delicate balance between how
much to tell and when to hold back. Tyndale would teach this lesson with their majesties and Cranmer observing the children and his performance.
The Princess Elizabeth, per Henry’s express command, would not be attending this trial session, and depending on how he viewed it, he would then decide if she would be allowed to attend from that point on. To keep her from getting upset by seeing the children without being allowed to meet with them it was thought best to send her back to Hatfield with her Governess until the lessons had been concluded; in the meantime, she would continue her own tutoring with some of the brightest scholars of the day.
True to form, the astute and precise Ms. Astley brought the orphans in strict accordance with the Queen’s orders and they were lodged in additional servants’ quarters, away from the nobility. The instructors and their majesties would meet them later in the day, after they had sufficient time to be prepared by the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Just in case there should be any outward opposition, Lord Rochford sought to eliminate it before it could cause true damage.
The initial lesson went off without a hitch. After getting over some nervousness at being in the presence of their King and Queen, the children quickly became excited by their lessons, particularly so when it came to learning how to use the letters to make their own names. Naturally, because they are children, at times they proved difficult for their tutor to corral and focus them back to their lessons. At one point Henry reached over to hold his wife’s hand as he looked on in sheer amazement, watching these common orphans embrace learning. Towards the end of the lesson their majesties played games and even took turns reading to the children and answering their questions. Overall it was a complete success. Henry eagerly agreed to let Anne have free reign over the educational plan. From that point onward she took full control.
Had the Queen Lived: Page 19