by Tracy Borman
Henry, meanwhile, had moved to Hampton Court, and there is an account—almost certainly apocryphal—that Lady Bryan had initially taken Elizabeth there so that she might be comforted by her father. The story goes that when she approached the king with her young charge in her arms—just as Anne Boleyn had done shortly before her death—and asked him if he wished to see his daughter, he bellowed: “My daughter? My daughter? You old devil, you witch, don’t dare to speak to me!” Terrified by this outburst, Lady Bryan apparently fled with Elizabeth and went in search of Cromwell, who counselled her to take her charge to Hatfield until the king’s anger had abated.4 Although this is a touching tale, it is not substantiated by any of the contemporary accounts, which all attest that Elizabeth was moved directly to Hunsdon a few days after her mother’s death.
In the weeks and months after her household’s removal to the country, it seems likely that the inquisitive and precocious young Elizabeth picked up scraps of whispered conversations from members of her household, gradually piecing them together until the full, horrific picture of her mother’s death emerged before her eyes. Not all of her household would have shared Lady Bryan’s sensitivity. Indeed, they may have felt duty bound to prevent the girl from falling into the same disgrace as her mother by revealing the latter’s fate in all its grisly horror. The Tudors were not squeamish about death. Alexander Ales, the Protestant refugee who had described Anne’s final plea to her husband, also told Elizabeth of his premonition of her mother’s death in what today seems an astonishingly insensitive manner. “On the day upon which the Queen was beheaded,” he wrote, “at sunrise, between 2 and 3 o’clock, there was revealed to me (whether I was asleep or awake I know not), the Queen’s neck after her head had been cut off, and this so plainly that I could count the nerves, the veins and the arteries.”5 Elizabeth was just shy of her twenty-sixth birthday when she read this account, by which time she had experienced enough violence and bloodshed to prevent any undue delicacy.
With no contemporary evidence to tell us of Elizabeth’s reaction when she eventually learned the truth, it is tempting to layer modern perceptions onto the mind of a girl who was at an impressionable age. Historians and psychologists alike have speculated that such a traumatic realization must have had a deep and enduring impact upon her outlook and behavior. “The harm done to Elizabeth as a small child resulted in an irremediable condition of nervous shock … In the fatally vulnerable years she had learned to connect the idea of sexual intercourse with terror and death.”6 Another argues that by depriving her of a female role model in her formative years, Anne’s death inhibited Elizabeth’s feminine attributes, leading to “a lively dread of pregnancy and childbirth.”7 In short, the execution of her mother caused Elizabeth to cling to that most famous trait: her virginity.
Certainly the loss of her mother must have had a significant impact upon the young Elizabeth’s outlook and development. But this would have been lessened considerably by the fact that for almost all of her early childhood, Anne had been a distant figure, making only occasional visits to her daughter. What’s more, Elizabeth had followed the traditional path of royal children and had been set up in her own household, thus fostering a sense of separation, even independence, from her parents at court. While she would have missed the steady supply of new clothes and other gifts, it is unlikely that she felt bereft at her mother’s now permanent absence. Indeed, at her tender age, she would probably have felt a greater wrench if one of her nursemaids or governesses had been suddenly taken away from her.
The practical impact of her mother’s death upon Elizabeth was more immediate. Her father had taken Jane Seymour as his third wife within days of Anne’s execution, and in her apparently placid good nature and sweet submissiveness, he hoped to lose himself—and gain an heir. His marriage to Anne had been annulled shortly before her execution on the grounds that his earlier relations with her sister, Mary, had rendered it invalid. This meant that Elizabeth was now illegitimate. Worse still, rumors about her parentage were now reaching fever pitch, and even the council declared that it believed she was the offspring of an incestuous affair between Anne and her brother, George Boleyn. Others, such as the outspoken Imperial ambassador, Chapuys, thought that another of Anne’s alleged lovers, Henry Norris, was the more likely father.
In the first week of July, Parliament repealed the statute declaring Elizabeth the king’s lawful heir, and formally pronounced her illegitimate. “In what ill case the young Lady Elizabeth now was, any one may guess: she being degraded into a meaner condition upon the Queen her mother’s divorce and death.” So observed the seventeenth-century chronicler John Strype.8 As her question to Sir John Shelton demonstrates, Elizabeth was quick to grasp the change in her situation. Being but a lady when before she had been a princess was galling, even to one of her tender years. If she had understood the meaning and implications of her illegitimacy at the time, she would have been even more miserable. She evidently soon came to appreciate them, however, and it was an issue about which she would be forever sensitive.
In the immediate aftermath of Anne Boleyn’s execution, things had looked much more promising for Elizabeth’s half sister, Mary. While Elizabeth had been kept to her rooms, Mary had been summoned to court by her father, who had “made much of her” and given her “many jewels belonging to the unjust Queen.”9 But if she thought that she would now be automatically restored to her place in the succession and given the title of princess, she was mistaken. Henry had no intention of revoking the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon after all the religious and political upheaval that it had caused, and he persisted in trying to force Mary to accept her illegitimate status.
At first Mary refused to give in, determined to honor her mother’s memory. A frustrated Cromwell admonished her for such unforgivable defiance: “To be plain with you, I think you the most obstinate woman that ever was.” He warned that if she did not conform to her father’s will, “I will never think you other than the most ungrateful, unnatural, and most obstinate person living.”10 The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were sent to demand her submission, and when she continued to resist, they brutally told her that “if she was their daughter, they would beat her and knock her head so violently against the wall that they would make it as soft as baked apples.”11
Resolute and principled though she was, Mary was not entirely devoid of political awareness, and, submitting to the persuasions of Chapuys—who urged her to push home her advantage and be restored to the king’s favor—she reluctantly agreed to acknowledge that her parents’ marriage had been invalid and her father was the supreme head of the Church. She was said to be deeply grieved at what she saw as a betrayal of her late mother, but the letter that she subsequently wrote to her father was full of humble deference and begged his forgiveness for her intractability. She even apologized for her refusal to acknowledge her half sister’s status as heir. “Concerning the Princess (so, I think, I must call her yet, for I would be loth to offend), I offered at her entry to that name and honour to call her sister, but it was refused unless I would also add the other title unto it; which I denied not then more obstinately than I am now sorry for it, for that I did therein offend my most gracious father and his just laws; and now that you think it meet, I shall never call her by other name than sister.”12
It seems that these were more than mere words. Mary’s attitude toward her half sister had softened considerably upon the death of Anne Boleyn. Having been restored to the king’s favor, she was given back her household. This was still a joint one with Elizabeth, but it was now reorganized to reflect Mary’s new status. Although both girls were illegitimate, Mary naturally took precedence as the elder. The younger sister’s retinue was reduced accordingly, and Mary could now “detach” her chamber staff if she went to court or visited another royal residence on her own. All of this considered, Mary could afford to be magnanimous to the child whose world, like her own some three years before, had suddenly fallen apart. In a startlin
g about-face, whereas previously she had not had a good word to say about the “little bastard,” now she commended her precociousness to their father. “My sister Elizabeth is well,” she wrote to him in July 1536, “and such a child toward, as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.”13
It appeared that Mary would be rewarded for her newfound obedience. A few days after sending this letter, it was reported that she was “every day better treated, and was never at greater liberty or more honourably served than now … she has plenty of company, even of the followers of the little Bastard, who will henceforth pay her Court.”14 But if her efforts toward Elizabeth were merely an attempt to persuade the king to restore her to the succession, it failed. Later that month, he formally declared both of his daughters illegitimate in favor of the children from his new marriage to Jane Seymour.15
Although this was a bitter blow to Mary, it paved the way for a genuine rapprochement with Elizabeth. United in their illegitimacy, the two daughters were now on an equal footing for the first time, and this improved their relationship considerably. Furthermore, Mary had always been fond of children and pitied the little girl’s motherless state. She therefore resolved to show Elizabeth the love and affection of a protective older sister.
By contrast, the usually unflappable Lady Bryan appeared to have been thrown into some confusion during the weeks after Anne Boleyn’s death. Whereas before, she had received regular instructions from the Queen and had been able to seek her advice or approval on all aspects of Elizabeth’s upbringing, now she was left, as she put it, “succourless … as a redeless creature.”16 Her sense of isolation was increased by the loss of her second husband, David Soche, who died about a month after the disgraced queen. There were signs of dissension within Elizabeth’s household as her Lady Mistress’s authority was challenged by Sir John Shelton. Like Margaret, Sir John was both related to and had been appointed by the late queen Anne, and therefore no doubt saw himself as at least equal to the Lady Mistress, if not superior by virtue of his sex, even though his position was in theory subordinate to hers. Worse still, nobody at court seemed to have given any consideration to even the basic needs of the king’s younger daughter.
Their negligence, coupled with her own distress, prompted Lady Bryan to show her mettle. At the beginning of July 1536, just a few weeks after the household’s departure from court, she wrote a furious letter to Thomas Cromwell, complaining bitterly at not being informed of Elizabeth’s new status and being left to get on with the important business of managing the young girl’s affairs without any guidance from the council. Lady Bryan was a stickler for matters of propriety, and this was something she was not prepared to tolerate. “Now as my Lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was in, and what degree she is at now, I know not but by hearsay,” she began. “I know not how to order her or myself, or her women or grooms.” With more than eight years’ experience in charge of the king’s children, as well as considerably more from raising her own, Lady Margaret cannot have been so at a loss as to how to proceed. Rather, one suspects that this was prompted by resentment at being kept in the dark about Elizabeth’s situation, when she was used to being consulted on all matters relating to the child’s upbringing.
Evidently intending to shock or shame Cromwell into action, Lady Bryan then turned her attention to the matter that she thought deserved most urgent redress: the fact that her young mistress had barely any clothes to wear. At almost three years old, Elizabeth would have been growing fast, and now more than ever she needed a regular supply of new dresses, shoes, and other accessories. In the past, this need had been more than adequately supplied by the regular parcels sent by her mother. But now this was apparently yet another matter that the council had overlooked. “I beg you to be good to her and hers, and that she may have raiment,” Lady Bryan implored, “for she has neither gown nor kirtle nor petticoat, nor linen for smocks, nor kerchiefs, sleeves, rails [nightdresses], body stitchets [corsets], handkerchiefs, mufflers, nor begins [nightcaps]. All thys her Graces mostake I have dreven [driven] of as long as I can, that, be my trothe, I cannot drive it any lenger.”17
The contemporary sources tell us that Anne had ordered a whole suite of new clothes for her daughter in the months leading up to her death. Lady Bryan’s letter was written just six weeks later. Had Elizabeth really grown so fast that she had exhausted all of her considerable supply of clothes? It seems more likely that her Lady Mistress was exaggerating in order to make a point. She was desperate to insure that Elizabeth was not permanently neglected by the king and his council. At heart a kind woman, she was no doubt motivated at least partly by a genuine concern for the child’s welfare, conscious of her role as surrogate mother. But she was also ambitious and had no desire to become sidelined in a court where she was used to enjoying some status as chief custodian of the royal heirs. Her letter to Cromwell should therefore be taken at a great deal more than face value; it was a carefully crafted attempt to restore prestige and attention to Elizabeth’s household, and thereby to her own position as its head.
In order to push her point home still further, Lady Margaret went on to describe the shameful disorder into which other household affairs had fallen, particularly those relating to mealtimes. It was in this matter that her archenemy, Sir John Shelton, had been causing trouble. He had insisted that Elizabeth should dine in state, rather than privately in her rooms. Perhaps he wished to uphold this Boleyn descendant’s regal status for as long as possible, and no doubt also to ingratiate himself with the infant who, in the fickle world of Tudor politics, might still be restored to the succession. “Mr Shelton would have my Lady Elizabeth to dine and sup every day at the board of estate,” she exclaimed. “It is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule. If she do, I dare not take it upon me to keep her Grace in health; for she will see divers meats, fruits, and wine, that it will be hard for me to refrain her from.” Lady Margaret thought it would be much more appropriate—and economical—if Elizabeth took her meals in her rooms, away from the temptations of grown-up food, and she urged Cromwell to see that this was ordered.
Lady Bryan ended the letter on a softer note, betraying her fondness for the motherless child in her care. “My Lady has great pain with her teeth,” she wrote, “which come very slowly,” and admitted: “This makes me give her her own way more than I would.” She went on to praise Elizabeth’s character and precociousness, saying that she was “as toward a child and as gentle of conditions as ever I knew in my life.” She added a hope that the child might be “set abroad” (in other words, go out in public) on special occasions, and predicted “that she shall so do as shall be to the King’s honour and hers.” Lady Bryan evidently hoped that Cromwell would relay this to the king and thereby soften his heart a little toward his younger daughter. She signed off with an apology for her “boldness in writing thus,” which was a little insincere, given everything that had gone before.18
Lady Bryan’s letter had the effect that she desired—at least in some respects. The records contain no further pleas for clothing, which suggests that Cromwell had put this to rights. He also supported Lady Margaret’s request for Elizabeth to eat in her rooms and wrote to Sir John Shelton accordingly. Cromwell no doubt found it distasteful to involve himself in such petty household squabbles, but he knew that Lady Bryan was not a woman to be gainsaid.
As the upheaval of Anne Boleyn’s execution began to subside and the petty disputes in Elizabeth’s household were resolved, the child’s upbringing settled into a more ordered and comfortable pattern. Lady Bryan supervised the household with assiduity and efficiency, quick to spot anything that detracted from the accustomed routine. Her letter to Cromwell had proved her to be a stickler for etiquette, which was understandable when one considers that it was an important part of her job to ensure that Henry VIII’s children were brought up with beautiful manners. The prolific nineteenth-century historian Agnes Strickland credits Lady Bryan with forging Elizabeth’s ch
aracter during these critical years. “Much of the future greatness of Elizabeth may reasonably be attributed to the judicious training of her sensible and conscientious governess.”19 Certainly Lady Margaret’s influence must have been considerable: she had provided a steady, constant maternal figure, and her continued presence during the turmoil of Anne’s downfall and execution provided some much-needed stability in the life of the young Elizabeth.
If she had succeeded in reestablishing some order in Elizabeth’s household and insuring that the child was not forgotten at court, Lady Margaret had not managed to restore her to the king’s affections. This was perhaps too unrealistic a hope, given that the very name of Anne Boleyn, and anything connected with her, was still anathema to Henry. By contrast, he doted on his new wife. The Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, surmised that Henry’s relief at finding a more suitable queen was akin to “the joy and pleasure a man feels in getting rid of a thin, old and vicious hack in the hope of getting soon a fine horse to ride.”20 The people of England were similarly relieved, and the wedding, which took place on May 30, was greeted with widespread rejoicing. With both of her predecessors dead and no legal bars to their union, Jane’s legitimacy was beyond question. Now all she had to do was produce the male heir that the king—and his country—so longed for.