Elizabeth (3 page)

I
n 1527, at the age of 36, Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509–47) started on a tortuous path that eventually resulted in a break with the Roman Catholic Church, the English Reformation and the founding of the Protestant Church of England. It also led to the King’s ‘Great Matter’ – Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) and his claim that Princess Mary, his daughter from that marriage, was illegitimate. Arguably, the cause of these momentous ruptures was that the King was facing middle age, married to an aging Queen who had thus far failed to give him a male heir.

By 1528, when Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was considering the matter of a possible divorce, Henry VIII was already infatuated by Anne Boleyn, the sister of one of his mistresses. But Anne had her eye on being more than just the King’s next lady love; from 1526 to the early 1530s, while Anne regularly proclaimed her love for the King, she also withheld her sexual favours from him. She played her hand with consummate skill, as in Henry's early love letters to Anne it is clear that marriage was not on his mind: ‘I promise you … that also I will take you for my only mistress, rejecting from thought and affection all others save yourself to
serve you only.’
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In turn, Anne frequently commented in her letters to the King that although her heart and soul were his to enjoy, her body would never be. By refusing to become Henry’s mistress, Anne caught and retained his interest. Henry might find casual sexual gratification with others, but it was Anne that he truly wanted; Anne who became his grand passion.

As the years passed and the prospect of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon became more real, Anne began to hint that she might be persuaded to take that ‘final step’ and give Henry the physical relationship that he craved above all else. In mid-1531 Henry separated from Catherine, and Anne began to take a more open role in the King’s life and at Court functions.

In September 1532, Anne was made Marquis of Pembroke, a title not previously held by a woman, and one that brought with it an annual income of £1,000. The title documents stated that the marquisate would pass to Anne’s male heirs born ‘of her body’, breaking with the usually worded ‘of her body lawfully begotten’, which meant heirs begotten from a married lady.
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In the following month, Henry went to meet François I, the King of France, at Calais, this time taking Anne with him as his consort. By November, Henry and Anne had adjoining rooms in the Calais Exchequer and their relationship appears to have become a sexual one. Certainly by January 1533, Anne believed that she was pregnant.

On 25 January, Henry and Anne were married in a small secret ceremony, although the divorce from Catherine had not yet been finalized. The union could be formally solemnized in church at a later date, ensuring that any child conceived at this time was ‘lawfully begotten’. It was not until April of that year that the King sent a deputation to Catherine of Aragon to tell her officially that she was no longer his wife and would be referred to henceforth as the Dowager Princess of Wales, Catherine’s title when her
first husband, Arthur, Henry’s older brother, died. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Catherine refused to accept Henry’s decision, but, in May, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, declared their marriage annulled on the grounds that Catherine had consummated her marriage with Prince Arthur. This was an unlikely event given Catherine and Arthur’s ages and the state of Arthur’s health at the time of their union. Five days later, the Archbishop publicly declared Henry’s marriage to Anne valid and she officially became Queen of England – at least to those who recognized the marriage. Anne was six months pregnant at the time.

Finally, Henry’s dream of a son seemed to be within his grasp. Anne’s pregnancy was difficult, it was true, but the labour itself proved far easier than anticipated. In the end, however, the King was to be bitterly disappointed. On Sunday, 7 September 1533, between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., Anne Boleyn gave birth to a baby girl. Eustace Chapuys, the Ambassador for Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor 1519–58; King of Spain 1506–56), reported gleefully: ‘The king’s mistress was delivered of a girl, to the great disappointment and sorrow of the king, of the lady herself, and of others of her party, and to the great shame and confusion of physicians, astrologers, wizards and witches, all of whom affirmed it would be a boy.’
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Henry’s daughter was christened Elizabeth after his mother – although the King was conspicuously absent from the occasion. Despite the King’s obvious disappointment in the sex of his new child, a splendid household was set up for the princess when she was just three months old, in accordance with the custom for babies of royal blood. The nursery was based at Hatfield in Hertfordshire, but Elizabeth was subsequently moved between several sites as each was ‘sweetened’ (cleaned and aired), including Ashridge House, Hertfordshire; Eltham Palace, London; Hunsdon House and Hertford Castle, both in Hertfordshire; the More near
Rickmansworth; Richmond Palace in Surrey and Greenwich Palace in South London.

Although Anne Boleyn visited her daughter, for the most part she was cared for by a large staff. Lady Margaret Bryan was Lady Mistress, the governess with day-to-day control of the nursery. Anne Boleyn would have approved Lady Margaret’s appointment, but it was Henry VIII himself who chose Margaret to care for his children. Henry held Margaret in great esteem: she was a distant relative and both Henry and Margaret were descended from Edward III through different sons. Lady Margaret had also been lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, as well as Lady Mistress to the young Princess Mary, Elizabeth’s elder half-sister. Lady Margaret was now made responsible for all the important matters relating to the young Elizabeth, and her parents only saw the child on special occasions.

Blanche Herbert was another key member of Elizabeth’s staff. Blanche was Lady Troy, the wife of William Herbert, the illegitimate son of the 1st Earl of Pembroke, and was a governess in Princess Elizabeth’s household. She offered a place to her 26-year-old niece, Blanche Parry (her surname was an anglicization of ‘ap Harry’, a derivation of her father’s Christian name, according to Welsh tradition). Blanche became one of Elizabeth’s closest and most trusted servants and friends and must have been present at Hatfield in the early months of Elizabeth’s life, as she recorded in her epitaph that she saw the baby princess rocked in her cradle. Blanche was well-educated and could read and write in English, Welsh and Latin, as well as run a household, play music, sing, sew and embroider.

While Elizabeth was being established in a fitting manner as Henry VIII’s only legally recognized daughter, Mary, his elder daughter by Catherine of Aragon, was declared illegitimate, lost her rank and status as a princess and was exiled from Court. Now
called ‘Lady Mary’, she was forbidden to see her parents and would never see her mother, Catherine, alive again. For the first months Mary lived quietly at Beaulieu in Newhall Boreham, Sussex, with her Lady Governess, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, but in October of that year, Beaulieu was given to Anne Boleyn’s brother.

In December 1533, Mary was sent to Hatfield, where she was forced to act as lady-in-waiting to her half-sister, Elizabeth. She found herself under the authority of Anne Boleyn’s uncle and aunt, Sir John Shelton, the Master of the Household, and his wife, Lady Anne; Lady Alice Clere (another Boleyn aunt) ran the household. Refusing to surrender her dignity or her rank, when Mary was asked if she wanted to see the princess, she replied that she ‘knew of no other princess in England but herself’, adding that the daughter of ‘Madame of Pembroke’ was ‘no princess at all’. Mary commented that as Henry VIII was her father, she would call the infant Elizabeth ‘sister’, just as she called her father’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Richmond, ‘brother’.
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Mary’s position was a difficult one. She was denied permission to attend Catholic Mass (her mother, Catherine of Aragon, was Roman Catholic), and when Henry VIII visited Hatfield, she was deliberately kept out of his way. This treatment continued for the first two-and-a-half years of her half-sister Elizabeth’s life, during which time Mary was bullied unmercifully by the Sheltons, humiliated, and was constantly afraid that she would be imprisoned or executed. Historian Alison Plowden has concluded that the treatment Mary received ‘turned a gentle, affectionate child into a bigoted, neurotic and bitterly unhappy woman.’
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Even though Elizabeth was a girl, the birth of a healthy and bonny child was an excellent omen for Henry and suggested that a
second, successful pregnancy might result in the birth of a healthy boy. However, in June 1534, Anne miscarried and in July her belief that she might be pregnant again turned out to be false.

By Christmas 1535, Anne was pregnant again, and on 7 January 1536, Catherine of Aragon died. The King and Queen Anne celebrated with festivities; however, on 29 January, the day on which Catherine was buried, Anne miscarried, and this time it was a baby boy. Anne later claimed that she had miscarried after hearing the news that Henry had been seriously injured at a joust, but the King, it seemed, had had enough. He saw the hand of God in his misfortune, reportedly stating, ‘God will not give me male children.’
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At about the same time, Henry’s interest in Anne began to wane, and his straying eyes were captured by Jane Seymour, a maid-of-honour at the Court.

It was obvious that the King was tiring of his second wife and was looking for a way out of his marriage. This time it was up to Thomas Cromwell, an adviser to Henry VIII, to find a way out, but divorce seemed an unlikely solution to Henry’s predicament. Unlike the Spanish-born Catherine of Aragon, who had been brought to live in a strange land, far from her family and native country, Anne Boleyn was English and, moreover, had connections to a large number of prominent noble families. Furthermore, she had lawfully given birth to the King’s child, a daughter who might make a bid for the throne in the future. This time, Thomas Cromwell built up a case against Anne Boleyn, accusing her of sexual affairs with several men, including Mark Smeaton, one of the Court musicians, Henry Norris, Francis Weston and William Brereton. But more lay in store for Anne – part of the formal charges read that, while married to the King, Anne had had relations with her own brother, George, Lord Rochford, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. Anne was alleged to have
‘procured and incited [George] … to violate and carnally know her, with her tongue in the said George’s mouth, and the said George’s tongue in hers, and also with open-mouthed kisses, gifts and jewels.’
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Cromwell was careful that the charge should stipulate that Anne Boleyn had only been unfaithful to the King
after
the Princess Elizabeth’s birth in 1533. Henry wanted Elizabeth to be acknowledged as his daughter, but at the same time he wanted her removed from any future claim to the succession.

As well as the adultery charges, Anne was accused of planning to poison Lady Mary and Henry Fitzroy, possible rivals to the throne. Anne and her reported lovers were also alleged to have openly discussed Henry VIII’s death. Found guilty of these charges, Anne was arrested on 2 May 1536 and moved to the Tower of London to await the King’s justice. The five men accused of being her lovers, including her brother, George, were also arrested. On 17 May, they were executed. On the same day, Henry divorced Anne, making their marriage null and void, and thus Elizabeth illegitimate. Two days later, on 19 May at 8 a.m, Anne Boleyn was beheaded on Tower Green in London.

While Anne Boleyn was being buried in haste within the confines of the Tower of London, Henry VIII visited Jane Seymour at her lodgings at Whitehall Palace.

Elizabeth and her half-sister Mary were at Hunsdon House while events unfolded with dizzying swiftness in London. When Anne Boleyn was executed, Elizabeth was just two years and eight months old.

On 20 May, the day after Anne’s execution, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour were formally betrothed. Even those who had previously disapproved of Henry’s marriage to Anne found the timing distasteful.
Ten days later, on 30 May, the couple were married in the chapel at York Place. This time Henry took no chances. A new law was passed making Jane’s children his only lawful offspring, but should she fail to have children, Henry was free to nominate his successor. If Henry Fitzroy, his illegitimate son, was his choice, the King was unlucky, as the young man died on 22 July.