Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  Although the idea was no doubt distasteful to her, Elizabeth could not refuse the Queen’s invitation without causing great offense. Besides, if she had heard the rumors about the pregnancy being false, she would have been curious to examine her half sister’s condition for herself. She arrived at Hampton Court shortly after receiving Mary’s summons. Happy though she was in her condition, Mary had by no means forgotten the resentment and suspicion that she felt toward Elizabeth. Determined to make a point, she took her time in granting her half sister an audience. Eventually, after three weeks of waiting, Elizabeth was summoned late one night to the royal presence. Accompanied only by Mary’s trusted servant, Susan Clarencieux, she was led by torchlight to the Queen’s bedchamber. Having been ushered into her half sister’s presence, Elizabeth reenacted the scene of almost two years before and humbly protested her innocence and devotion. This time Mary was not to be fooled, however, and she curtly dismissed her younger sister’s performance, chiding her for so stubbornly refusing to admit her guilt. Taken aback by the Queen’s harshness, Elizabeth continued to plead her loyalty. After a while, Mary grudgingly uttered “a few comfortable words” to her before abruptly sending her back to her apartments. According to Foxe’s account, Philip had been hiding behind an arras the whole time, eager to spy upon this exchange between his aging wife and his bewitching young sister-in-law.78 There are no other accounts to corroborate this, but Philip certainly showed a keen interest in Elizabeth thenceforth.

  As Mary’s confinement progressed and the due date of May 9 drew closer, there was a fever pitch of anticipation both at court and across the country. Ambassadors overseas also waited anxiously for news. Any scrap of information was seized upon, and rumors swiftly became fact. Little wonder, then, that at the beginning of May, it was falsely reported that the Queen had delivered a son. The English ambassador in Brussels wrote to his agent at court, urgently seeking confirmation. But before he received it, the news had spread throughout the Netherlands, and bells were rung in celebration. Even the English merchants on the channel heard of it and set off cannons from their ships as a sign of joy.79 Their celebrations were brought to an abrupt halt when the rumors were confirmed to be false.

  The date that the baby should have been born came and went. Mary remained confident, however: after all, first babies were often late. A little over three weeks later, on June 1, she experienced some pains, and her ladies hastily gathered around, assuming that the labor had begun. Letters were duly prepared, announcing the birth of a prince, to the Pope, Charles V, Henry II, and all the potentates of Europe.80 But it came to nothing, and Mary and her attendants resumed their waiting. The physicians must have miscalculated, they reasoned. “Her doctors and ladies have proved to be out in their calculations by about 2 months,” Renard reported to Charles V on June 24, “and it now appears that she will not be delivered before 8 or 10 days from now.” He added, with a note of anxiety: “Everything in this kingdom depends on the Queen’s safe deliverance.”81 Meanwhile, those opposed to the regime spread counter-rumors, claiming that the pregnancy and confinement had been nothing but an elaborate sham. To explain the Queen’s swollen girth, the French ambassador reported that she had been “delivered of a mole or lump of flesh, and was in great peril of death.”82

  For months, Mary had been surrounded by her ladies, who had constantly assured her that everything was progressing as normal with the pregnancy. All too willing to believe them, she had been whipped up into an ever-greater fervor of anticipation. Only one of them, Mrs. Frideswide Strelley, had doubted Her Majesty’s condition from the start. In the early days of her pregnancy, Mary had joyfully summoned Mistress Strelley to feel the baby move. “Feel you not the child stirr?” she had asked. “My fortune is not so great,” had come the reply. Mary had dismissed her concerns at the time, but now, with the waiting dragging on inexorably, she again sent for Frideswide. “Ah, Strelley, Strelly, I see they be all but flatterers and none trewe to me but thou.”83 At last, a year after first believing herself to be pregnant, Mary gave up and admitted that in spite of all the signs to the contrary, she had been mistaken. “There is no longer any hope of her being with child,” wrote Charles V to his ambassador in Portugal on September 14.84

  By the time the Queen finally admitted defeat, Hampton Court was thronging with noblemen and women from across the country, all eager to see England’s new heir. One suspects that those who arrived toward the end of the confinement wished rather to take part in what was rapidly becoming the greatest scandal of the reign so far. The humiliation that Mary felt can only be imagined. It would have been disappointing enough if she had given birth to a girl. The fact that she gave birth to nothing at all was mortifying.

  Elizabeth, watching from the sidelines, had seen not only Mary’s personal anguish but the damage that the whole episode had done to her public reputation. In just a few months, Mary had been transformed from the warrior Queen who had rallied her troops to defeat Wyatt’s rebellion to the subject of ridicule and derision, as rumors abounded that she had tried to pass off another child as her own. Her subjects had been shockingly disrespectful, pinning satirical posters to the palace doors and even throwing abusive pamphlets into her own rooms. It was a serious blow to her authority, for Mary had failed in her duty not only as a queen but also as a woman. All the fears that had been voiced about the accession of a female sovereign seemed justified. If Elizabeth herself was to be a queen regnant, then she must learn from this harsh but invaluable lesson.

  Witnessing Mary’s phantom pregnancy might also have strengthened Elizabeth’s growing conviction that she herself was incapable of bearing children in any case. This conviction had been generated by her mother’s tragic example, together with that of her aunt, Mary Boleyn, as well as by the fact that, like her half sister, Mary, she herself had experienced menstrual problems from early puberty. Quite apart from her antipathy toward marriage, such a belief in her infertility might have been enough to decide Elizabeth once and for all to remain a virgin.

  She had further evidence to support this view during those months spent at Hampton Court, for she witnessed Mary’s humiliation as a result not just of the false pregnancy but also of the inequality of her marriage. The Queen made no secret of her adoration for her husband, and despite exceeding him in age and rank, she seemed meekly to defer to him in all things. Philip, meanwhile, was struggling to keep up the pretense of affection toward this prematurely aged, sexually inadequate wife, and the whole farce of her phantom pregnancy had made him increasingly restless to be rid of her—and her hostile country. To his relief, in July 1555, as Mary’s confinement at Hampton Court dragged on, Charles V dispatched a summons for his son to attend to Imperial business in the Netherlands. Whether this was as a result of a private plea on Philip’s part is not known. When Mary heard of it, she was aghast and wrote at once to Charles, begging him to withdraw his request. “I assure you, Sire, that there is nothing in this world that I set so much store by as the King’s presence,” she wrote, and claimed that “quite apart from my own feelings, his presence in this kingdom has done much good and is of great importance for the good governance of this country.” Her appeals fell on deaf ears, however, and when it became clear that no child would result from those long months of waiting at Hampton Court, Philip prepared to embark for his father’s dominions.

  In the meantime, he found a great deal of diversion in the company of his sister-in-law. Both having time on their hands in the long hours of waiting for news from the Queen’s birthing chamber, they became better acquainted with each other. Philip found the Lady Elizabeth a captivating and charming companion, and she seemed to go out of her way to court his favor. “At the time of the Queen’s pregnancy, Lady Elizabeth, when made to come to the court, contrived so to ingratiate herself with all the Spaniards, and especially the King, that ever since no one has favoured her more than he does,” observed the Venetian ambassador.85

  Before long, it was rumored that the Spanish king w
as so captivated by his half sister’s youthful beauty, which contrasted sharply with his wife’s faded looks, that he determined to have her for himself. Any subsequent favor that he showed toward her was therefore interpreted not as policy but lust. Elizabeth had herself been suggested as a bride for Philip at the age of just thirteen, as part of Henry VIII’s schemes to forge an Imperial alliance. But such betrothals were made and broken all the time, so there is no reason to suppose that it was particularly remembered by either party. In fact, the only evidence to suggest that Philip was in love with Elizabeth was her own testament, made years later when she was queen. By then, the two sovereigns had long been at war, and Elizabeth was fond of boasting that their relationship had begun with love, at least on Philip’s part.

  There is little to support her contention. It seems more likely that Philip, aware of his wife’s poor health and her continuing failure to produce an heir, had an eye to the future. If this heretical girl came to the throne, the best way to curb her activities would be either to marry her or to forge some other alliance that would secure her friendship. After all, England played a critical part in the ongoing power struggle between the might of France and Spain, and if she was loyal to the latter only for as long as Mary lived, then Philip needed to plan further ahead. What was more, the alternative claimant to the English throne was Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been raised in France and was betrothed to the Dauphin. From Philip’s perspective, Elizabeth was therefore very much the lesser of two evils. As a result, he resolved to show her every courtesy during the weeks leading up to his departure from Hampton Court.

  This was anathema to Mary, who by now hated her sister as much as she loved her husband. Philip II’s envoy later reported that one of the principal causes of her resentment toward Elizabeth was “her fear that if she died your Majesty would marry her.” Having just failed to produce a child, and feeling increasingly old and barren, Mary was taunted by the thought that her half sister, who “is more likely to have children on account of her age and temperament,” would bear Philip many sons if they married.86

  Much to the Queen’s resentment, her husband requested that Elizabeth should be among the party who travelled to Greenwich to bid him farewell as he sailed for the Netherlands. By now openly suspicious of her half sister and jealous of the esteem in which she was held by both her husband and her people, she assented only on condition that Elizabeth should be conveyed to Greenwich discreetly by barge, rather than through the streets of London, where she could be cheered by the crowds. She herself was loath to be seen by these crowds, painfully aware that the last time had been when, some five months before, she had made her way in expectant triumph to her confinement at Hampton Court. Now she must face her people again, her belly no longer distended, knowing that she had failed to give them the prince of whom she had been so confident. She endured the ordeal bravely, however, maintaining a proud bearing and gratefully acknowledging the cheers and good wishes that her kinder subjects cried out. But having got through this trial, she then had to face the greater one of bidding farewell to her adored husband. As she watched his ship embark from Greenwich, she suffered more intense misery than she had yet in her troubled life. Now she not only had no child, she had no husband to comfort her.

  “To say the truth the Queen’s face has lost flesh greatly since I was last with her,” observed the Venetian ambassador, Michiel. “The extreme need she has of her Consort’s presence harassing her, as she told me, she having also within the last few days in great part lost her sleep.”87 While it caused his neglected wife a great deal of grief, however, Philip’s departure sparked something of a reconciliation between her and Elizabeth. Perhaps it had removed one of the causes of jealousy on Mary’s part, or perhaps she was now more willing than ever to honor the commands of her husband, as it made her feel closer to him in his absence. His parting words had included a commendation of the Lady Elizabeth, and he had reiterated this in a letter to the Queen written shortly after his arrival in Brussels. Mary duly allowed her half sister to return to her favorite country residence of Hatfield, and although she remained under surveillance, it felt a good deal less like a prison than Woodstock had done. In late 1556, she invited Elizabeth to court, although she stopped short of including her in the Christmas celebrations, and she was sent back to Hertfordshire at the beginning of December.

  One of the reasons for Elizabeth’s peremptory dismissal from court could have been her refusal to accept Philip’s attempts to marry her to Emmanuel Philibert, the Duke of Savoy. Initially, Mary had heartily concurred with this plan. Marrying her heretical sister to a foreign Catholic would go a good way toward neutralizing the threat she still posed to Mary’s authority. She therefore summoned Elizabeth to her presence and relayed her husband’s scheme to her. She was taken aback by her sister’s reaction. Elizabeth pleaded with the Queen not to make her enter such a match, crying that “the afflictions suffered by her were such that they had not only ridded her of any wish for a husband, but that they had induced her to desire nothing but death.”88 This was the clearest indication that Elizabeth had ever given of the profound impact that her early experiences had had upon her view of marriage. It had proved the death of her mother and two of her stepmothers, and had done irreparable damage to her half sister’s authority as queen. She would not endure the same fate herself. Besides, with her hope of succeeding Mary growing ever stronger, leaving England in order to marry a foreigner—and a Catholic one at that—was entirely at odds with her plans.

  In an increasingly hysterical plea to her half sister, Elizabeth burst into “a flood of tears,” and by the end of their meeting, Mary herself was crying. But her tears seemed more the result of anger than desperation, and she immediately dismissed Elizabeth not just from her presence but also from the court. So outraged was she by her younger sister’s defiance that she talked of summoning Parliament and having her removed from the succession.89 Camden attested that she showed such “inveterate hatred to the Lady Elizabeth [and] did so boyle with anger, that shee loaded her with checks and taunts, and stucke not ever and anon to affirme, that Mary Queen of Scots was the certaine and undoubted heire to the Crowne of England next after her selfe.”90

  Rather surprisingly, though, Mary subsequently relented and told her husband that his plans for the Savoy marriage must be dropped. Quite why she decided to defend her half sister is not clear. Had Elizabeth’s tearful plea moved her after all? Another explanation is that Mary continued to doubt Elizabeth’s legitimacy as a princess of royal blood. She had often remarked in private that she suspected that Elizabeth “had the face and countenance of Mark Smeaton,” one of the men with whom Anne Boleyn was accused of adultery. This would explain why her first reaction to Elizabeth’s refusal to marry Savoy was to confirm her bastardy and remove her from the succession. This would also conveniently remove the wily young woman as a threat to her own queenship and leave her free to choose a more malleable successor.

  Elizabeth had been glad to leave court in December 1556. From the haven of Hatfield, she was gradually building support from those who shared her religious views and hoped for the day when she might be queen. Among them was Katherine Knollys, the daughter of Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary. As Elizabeth’s first cousin, Katherine was her closest female relative on her mother’s side. She was some ten years older than Elizabeth but had spent time with her as a child. Elizabeth was drawn to Katherine because she had known Anne Boleyn and was said to have been among the women who attended her during her final days in the Tower, even though Katherine would have only been a young girl at the time.

  Elizabeth and Katherine were also united by their Protestant beliefs and sought solace in each other’s company during the dangerously uncertain years of Mary’s reign. By 1556, they had become so close that when Katherine and her husband were obliged to flee to exile on the Continent in order to escape the religious purges, Elizabeth was heartbroken. Perhaps as much to reassure herself as her cousin, she wrote Katherine a
comforting letter as she and her husband were preparing to depart. “Relieve your sorrow for your far journey with joy of your short return,” she began, “and think this pilgrimage rather a proof of your friends, than a leaving of your country.” She went on to assure Katherine that she would remain as true a friend to her in her absence as she had been when they were together, and would do everything possible to protect her interests. “The length of time and distance of place, separates not the love of friends, nor deprives not the show of good will … when your need shall be most you shall find my friendship greatest. Let others promise, and I will do, in words not more in deeds as much. My power but small, my love as great as them whose gifts may tell their friendship’s tale, let will supply all other want, and oft sending take the lieu of often sights. Your messenger shall not return empty, nor yet your desires unaccomplished … And to conclude, a word that hardly I can say, I am driven by need to write, farewell, it is which in one way I wish, the other way I grieve.” She signed the letter: “Your loving cousin and ready friend, Cor Rotto [Broken Heart].”91

  Elizabeth was ever one for fair words and well-turned phrases, but her letter to Katherine has a ring of truth about it. Her promise to help her cousin was not lightly made, for she would have known how dangerous it would be to antagonize Mary still further by advocating the cause of Protestant exiles. Furthermore, her actions when she herself became queen would prove the sincerity of her words. Katherine and Francis Knollys remained on the Continent for the rest of Mary’s reign and became prominent among the increasing number of English exiles there. As they travelled from country to country, drumming up support for the Protestant cause, they kept an anxious eye on events back in England, praying for the day when they might return.

  Meanwhile, another of Elizabeth’s female allies, Anne of Cleves, had fallen gravely ill. She had left court soon after Elizabeth had departed for Ashridge during the early days of Mary’s reign and had sensibly remained in the background ever since. Mary had permitted Elizabeth to visit her at Hever from time to time. Elizabeth valued—and learned from—Anne’s pragmatic approach, and the two women had remained close. It was therefore with great sadness that Elizabeth learned that Anne had died on July 16, 1557, while in residence at Chelsea Manor. Anne’s will attests to the affection that she felt for Henry’s daughters, for she bequeathed them her best jewels. She was buried with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Although she had been just short of forty-two years of age when she died, she had won the dubious honor of being the longest lived of all Henry’s wives. But her death had come all too soon for Elizabeth, who had once more been deprived of a much-needed mother figure.