The She-King (The Consecrated Life of Elizabeth I of England) E-Book

Jacqueline Q. Louison

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 790

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

"SHE only was a KING, and knew how to govern. How to support the dignity of her crown, and the repose and weal of her subjects, required the course she had taken": such was the tribute of Henry IV, King of France, to Elizabeth I, Queen of England. This essay by Jacqueline Q. Louison is the second edition of "The She-King". It highlights a consecrated life to "duty". It establishes a subtle distinction between overpraise and discredit.

Leseprobe

To those who contributed to maintain me on the road of learning

My late husband,

My beloved mother and father,

My admired grandmother,

My cherished children,

My valued instructors and educators,

To those ceaselessly working to allow all researchers or seekers of Truth to have

access to free archived documentation:

http://archive.org

http://projectgutenberg.org

http://books.google.com

In thankfulness and gratitude,

I humbly dedicate this work.

Of the same author

Doctorate Thesis

Les puritains et la fondation spirituelle des Etats-Unis d’Amérique, The Puritans and the Spiritual Foundation of the United States of America, Edilivre, 2011.

Doctoral Thesis presented in December 2007, published in 2011, Graduate School, Faculty of Foreign Letters, Languages and Literatures, University of the French West Indies, Martinique

Poetry

Les créateurs, BOD, 2017

Vision de l’aurore de félicité, Edilivre, 2014

Le poète est un peintre, Edilivre, 2011

Emotions, Edilivre, 2008

Fiction

Apothéose, L’Harmattan, 2018

Trilogy, L’Harmattan:

Tome I - Le crocodile assassiné, 2006

Tome II - L’ère du serpent, 2012

Tome III – Le triomphe des crocodiles, 2014

Le canari brisé, Ibis rouge Editions, 2005

Short stories

Cicatrices, Edilivre, 2010

IN MEMORY OF HER LATE MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II OF ENGLAND (1926-2022)

Queen of the United Kingdom, the other Commonwealth, the longest reigning British monarch.

Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle, in Ballater, Scotland, United Kingdom, at 15:10 BST on 8 September 2022, at the age of 96, ending her 70-year reign. According to her death certificate, which was made public on 29 September, she died of old age.

Table des matières

In Memory of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England

Preface

Introduction

I - INITIATION

I.1. The Mark of Destiny

I.2. Father Figure

I.3. Fate Attached to Beauty

I.4. A Household of Trouble

I.5. The Happy Years of Loving Kinship

I.6. The Light of Understanding

I.7. Education Fit for a Monarch

I.8. The Milkmaid Tale

PART II - GLORY

II.1. Splendour Through Symbolism

II.2. The Pegasus Symbol

II.3. Femininity vs. Masculinity

II.4. Celibacy and Virginity

II.5. Queen of the People

II.6. Impersonality and Secrecy

II.7. The Via Media

II.8. Philip II’s Spirit of Dominion

PART III - AGAINST ALL ODDS

III.1. Triumph

III.2. The Church of England

III.3. Outburst of Genius

III.4. The Elizabethan ‘Style’

III.5. A New Generation

III.6. The Golden Sceptre

III.7. She Meditates Much Alone

III.8. Queen Elizabeth’s Speech to her Last Parliament in Answer to the Commons Thanks to Her Suppressing the ‘Engrossing of Monopolies’

III.9. Nomination of King James VI of Scotland as Her Successor

III.10. Most Revered Queen

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

I – Foreign Rulers

II – Papal States

III – Ambassadors

Afterword

Bibliography

PREFACE

When the author told me that she was going to write a book on the archived life of Queen Elizabeth I, I was not really surprised. I had read her published dissertation The Puritans and the Spiritual Foundation of the United States of America and I knew the unusual profile of this poet, rewarded for her thesis on American civilization and her presentation of research papers related to Toni Morrison’s novels. She is also the author of Afro-Caribbean science fiction books including the African epic Assassinated Crocodile Trilogy.

What most surprised me was the subject of the book, centred upon a character of whom so much has been written, but here, seen through the prism of the author’s completely assumed passion.

How and why could it be that a Caribbean woman, born in Martinique in 1952, from a background of craftsmen and housewives, the only graduate in a family of ten children, who had managed to get a doctorate in forceps in the 20th century, while working full time and raising six children somewhere in West Africa, now in retirement – how and why could she become so passionate, and in the greatest discretion, write about a Western queen who lived between 1533 and 1603 in Europe?

To go through so many archives, to search so avidly for the lost traces of the daily life of Elizabeth I, Queen of England, to visit London: was that fascination enough to make sense?

Everything is there, in the She-King, neither a novel nor a historical book. Perhaps and quite simply a proof of love. In this century, the bridge is quickly and well set between old and new worlds, between continents, between times. Some have abandoned prejudice and chosen moderation, taking their distance from all extremes, opting for love, reaching beyond what they could be. Isn’t that the message left by “The Virgin Queen”?

Tours, France 2022 Christina Goh, vocalist, poet, essayist.

INTRODUCTION

Why do we write? Why do we spend hours and hours, bent on something we are not sure will even be read or accepted? The answer? Because we feel, deep in our consciousness, that every work is worth being done, clothed with some part of truth, something that will - maybe - bring in more simplicity, more clarity to what was not obvious at first. To undertake such as represents a challenge, is no easy task, but one I could not avoid, necessitated for the full completion of my doctoral thesis titled The Puritans and the Spiritual Foundation of the United States of America that I had had the honour of submitting to a jury of eminent scholars at the French Caribbean University of the West Indies, in Martinique, under the supervision of Prof. Lionel Davidas, head of the English department of Foreign Studies, Literature, Arts and Culture at that time. I could not escape the urgency I felt deep inside myself to bring to light the shadow that lingered in my mind, behind the project: Elizabeth I, Queen of England, whose principal role in the unfoldment of the Anglo-Saxon ‘spirit’ necessitated a deeper analysis than the ‘skeleton’ that I had too rapidly sketched in my work.

It would take me 16 years before I could be satisfied. After the first edition of the She-King in 2018, I reviewed the text in order to present it as a research paper, with a more elaborate bibliography, quotations and footnotes.

The life of Queen Elizabeth symbolises the mysteries of all ages. Her human experience is not to be told by historians alone, since all the atmosphere of the epoch in which she reigned is saturated with spirituality, beauty, a longing for an ideal. All sprouted from her charisma, everything seemed to be expressed from her own aura; why? Because she had understood the true meaning of life, in its uttermost simplicity and purity.

There was nothing in her beginnings to indicate that she would ever reign or be maintained in power, given the circumstances in which she was born, and the specific atmosphere prevailing at the time of her birth. Not only did she become queen, but she retained her power for forty-four years. History has wiped out many names of illustrious kings; her first name was enough to keep her in posterity, even though she didn't leave any ‘male heir from her body’ behind.

This work is destined to every student of Anglo-Saxon civilization, history and culture; to the genuine truth seeker; to those who will never stand content with appearances.

Are those who know allowed to talk? Those who do not know can perceive. No arguing can stand before reality. Reality is what it is.

I - INITIATION

Elizabeth I’s life was a dedicated one; she deliberately dedicated it to the welfare of her people. The circumstances as they presented themselves to her were the key factors.

I.1. The Mark of Destiny

There is a new thought because there are newly incarnated beings upon the earth, who come with different intentions. New intentions generate new manifestations and so the face of the planet changes.

The baby was baptised, although she was not ‘truly’ welcomed. How can this be explained? This is what strikes the imagination from the beginning. A woman and a king, parents of an infant girl. Here lies the mystery: the power of Destiny or whatever it may be called, capable of reducing to nought all human schemes.

“I pray Jesu, and it be his will, send us a prince.”1 The prayers and incantations throughout the country would not avail. On a Sunday, between three and four in the afternoon, the 7th of September 1533, at the royal palace of Greenwich in Kent, a girl was born to Ann Boleyn and King Henry VIII. Its name would be Elizabeth, not Edward or Henry and the richest beds in the royal treasury, a prince ransom2, would seem as nothing. However, following the customs of the day, as it was a royal baby, there were to be jousts and rejoicings. For the infant’s consecration at church, the sumptuous cloth, which Catherine of Aragon had brought from Spain to wrap up her children, would not be offered to Anne Boleyn. For Catherine of Aragon ``It had not pleased God she should be so ill-advised as to grant any favour in a case so horrible and abominable!”3And for once Henry had to acquiesce. The child thus ushered into a contemptuous world lived to be Queen Elizabeth, to humble the pride of Spain, and to bear to a final triumph the banner which Henry had raised.4

There was a sense of expediency and febrility in the course of the events unfolding at that time: about the 28th of August, Anne had come from Windsor to Greenwich, as her time of delivery was fast approaching. Though apparently Henry had displayed much solicitude that no outside influences should disturb Anne’s peace, he remained the same as he would ever be: he had had his way months previously, and the charms which had seemed to enslave his heart no longer operated. Only a week or two before the birth of Anne Boleyn’s child, when she was protesting against one of his flirtations, she was told “to close her eyes and put up with it as her betters had done.” “She must understand”, he had added, “that in a moment he could debase her even further than he had raised her.”5 Henry VIII had another ‘lady love’ in view, and it was one of Anne Boleyn’s maid-in-waiting, Margaret Shelton, or ‘Madge’.

Many of those who were accustomed to the monarch’s dispositions looked on those signs as favourable to a recall of ‘his true legitimate wife’. This idea persisted and would linger the following years “that Catherine of Aragon would be taken back”. It showed how little they understood the real nature of the king’s personality. What opacity hid the deepest feelings of this ruler to the sights of those who pretended to know or even to master him! Nobody would predict how far he would go to carry to completion his flouting of the Pope’s commands in which he was then fiercely engaged. Also the hidden influence of Thomas Cromwell was not appreciated; for there can scarcely be a doubt that already, in a comparatively unimportant post, he had acquired a sway over his sovereign which his fellows of the Council as yet little suspected.

***

The baby’s destiny was bound up with accidents of State, which none could then foretell; but this at least might have been discerned, that the birth was also a symbol of the most momentous revolution in the history of the country. The English Church had cast off the supremacy of Rome. The proximate cause was the child that Anne was bearing. Whatever the future held in store, its birth at least ensured that it would be the child of the English Reformation.

The apartment in which the princess had opened her eyes was hung with tapestry representing the history of holy virgins, and was from that circumstance called ‘the chambers of the Virgins’. Anne Boleyn would find consolation in observing that “They may now, with reason, call this room the Chamber of Virgins, for a virgin is now born in it on the vigil of that auspicious day, on which the Church commemorates the nativity of the Virgin Mary.”6 Elizabeth, born on the eve of the Virgin’s nativity, would die on the eve of the Virgin’s annunciation.

Anne Boleyn had seen her fate and secretly set her faith in her girl’s destiny. Deep inside she foresaw in her birth the promise of a new current, a new era. She had witnessed the tyranny exercised on the oppressed, on those who were not counted as ‘worthy’. Despite the appearances, she was not expecting to be spared. She had not had her will in all that had happened to her. She had tried to take the best out of the wreck of her life. What woman would accept to be chosen by a man everybody knew saw himself as master over all feminine souls? If he wanted her, it would be as Queen, nothing less. While the divorce suit against Catherine of Aragon would drag on from the year 1527 to the year 1536, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were living together in the autumn of 1532. By January 1533 Anne was known to be with child and the pair had been secretly and hastily married on the 25th of the same month.7 She must have been three months pregnant when she had walked all the way to the coronation Tower.

The death of Henry VIII’s sister, Mary, the 24th of June seems to have made little difference to the high spirits then prevailing at court. Any mourning was brief. What mattered was the delivery at Greenwich on the 28th of Anne’s wedding gift from Francis I, a magnificent litter with three mules specially purchased from the dauphin, and originally presented to her brother in Paris. She immediately tried it on a three-mile trial.8 An unusual ostentation of magnificence appears to have attended the celebration of the official nuptials of Henry VIII and his favourite. The fondness of the king for pomp and pageantry was at all times excessive, and on this occasion his love and his pride would equally conspire to prompt an extraordinary display. Queen Anne: a happy mother of England’s happiness by her most happy daughter, bare a white crowned falcon, holding a sceptre in her right talon, standing upon a golden trunk, out of which sprouted both white and red roses. This emblem would be accompanying her daughter all her life.9

***

From the establishment of the Norman dynasty, no private gentlewoman, before Elizabeth Woodville10, had been permitted to ascend the throne. With that solitary example were associated the mournful and appalling images of two murdered sons, a neglected daughter, and most terrible of all, the dreary prison - the Abbey of Bermondsey - in which the once idolised queen had been condemned to drag out the last period of life, to which she had been confined by her son-in-law, Henry the Seventh.11 The contemplation of such a picture might have awed and subdued a temper less ardent, a spirit less enthusiastic, but to Anne Boleyn it lent a desperate resolution, “to sacrifice everything to her duties.”12 Talking to Percy, the son and heir of the earl of Northumberland, the young gentleman she had fallen in love with and hoped till the end to marry, she had tried hard to make herself understood:

Such grave reflections have accustomed me to look upon life from a higher point than do women of my age. The details in which many others find their pleasures or their sorrows are very little to me. For a moment I thought I would be the good angel of Tudor and England; I had softened the naturalness of the king: it is the finest time of my reign; but who can fathom the secret intentions of the Almighty? I was looking for immediate good, and It smiled at my narrow intelligence. My predictions were wrong. I did not know how to keep the king in my chains.13

Archbishop Cranmer had opened his court on the 10th of May 1533. When the formalities prescribed by canon jurisprudence had been fulfilled, a judgement was given on the 23rd, by which the marriage between Henry and Catherine of Aragon was declared to have been null and void from the beginning. On the 28th, the archbishop held another court, and decided that the marriage between Henry and Anne was good and valid. This having been done, there was no longer any reason for delaying the coronation, which in hope of this favourable issue had been arranged to take place on the 1st of June.

On the 29th, the day after Cranmer's sentence in her favour, Anne left Greenwich, where she had been staying with the king, to come up by the river to the Tower. Knowing from Rochford (her brother) how ill Francis I of France had received the news of his marriage, Henry attached such importance to this new mission that he hurried his two envoys out of the country before the Coronation, at which, accordingly, Anne's brother and uncle were not allowed to be present. On the eve of his journey Norfolk confided to Chapuys that there had been trouble over the seizure of the late Queen's barge to convey Anne up the Thames from Greenwich to the Tower.

The new queen's chamberlain (Thomas, Lord Burgh of Gainsborough) not only took the barge, but removed and mutilated Catherine's arms upon it. According to Norfolk, Henry was annoyed, and rather roughly rebuked Lord Burgh. “The barge”, he said, “belonged to Catherine, and there were many others in the river quite as suitable.”14 In this barge, attended by a numerous retinue, and followed by nearly two hundred boats, Anne went up the river. At the Tower she was received with the customary ceremonies - trumpets sounded, and cannon roared - but the people remained silent. There was none of the enthusiasm with which in all ages Englishmen have greeted a popular queen.

The following day Anne spent time at the Tower. On Saturday, May 31st, she proceeded in great state and pomp through the city to Westminster. By order of the king preparations had been made for the occasion: flags were unfurled, carpets hung from the windows, barriers kept off the crowd; and the guilds were drawn up in their best array on both sides of the road. To meet the expenses a tax had been laid on all householders, whether Englishmen or foreigners; but an exception had been made by the lord mayor and his brethren in favour of the Spanish merchants, as countrymen of Catherine of Aragon. This piece of delicacy showed that the Spaniards were very popular at that moment, for otherwise the court of aldermen would scarcely have paid much attention to their feelings.

The procession was headed by about a dozen French merchants residing in London, dressed all alike in violet velvet, wearing on the sleeve the colours of Anne. An attempt to bring over a throng of French gentlemen to take part in the festivities had failed, so, faute de mieux, merchants rode in their stead. After them rode English gentlemen and noblemen according to their degree. Then came the lord chancellor with Carlo Capello, the Venetian ambassador, and the primate with the Bailly de Troyes. The progress was not without its little annoyances. The merchants of the Steelyard had not been able to obtain the same favours as the Spaniards, and had been obliged by the lord mayor to erect a pageant at Gracechurch near their house. They chose to represent Mount Parnassus, on which chair sat Apollo with the muses. When Anne arrived before this pageant and halted in front, the muses addressed her, singing verses in her praise. But just opposite to her was that part of the pageant by which the German traders avenged themselves for having been forced to raise the structure. Parnassus was appropriately adorned with coats of arms, and above all others, in the most honourable place, was a great imperial eagle, bearing on its breast the emblems of Castille and Aragon, the arms of Catherine of Aragon. Lower down came those of Henry, and, lowest of all, the coat which the heralds had made out for the Boleyns.

Anne was well versed in heraldry, and detected at once the insult offered to her. For the moment she had to submit, for there was no doubt that the Emperor was of higher rank than the great granddaughter of good Alderman Bullen. But from Eustace Chapuys, it was reported that she deeply resented the slight, and that on the following day she tried to induce the king to punish the obnoxious merchants. The English, less secure in their position than the mighty traders of the Steelyard, were more cautious in their marks of disloyalty. Still, they too contrived to do some unpleasant things.15 The merchants of the staple had erected a pageant at Leadenhall; and on it sat St. Anne and Mary Cleophas with four children, of whom one stepped forward to compliment Anne. The child delivered a long oration, saying that from St. Anne had sprung a fruitful tree, and expressing a hope that the like would be true of this Anne also. As the mother of the virgin never had any children but that one daughter, and as Anne desired above all things to have a son, this was not a very kind thing to say, and it can scarcely have helped to smooth her ruffled temper. It was late when the procession reached Westminster, where Anne publicly accepted some wine, and then retired to her apartment.

On Whitsunday, the 1st of June 1533, took place The noble triumphant Coronation of Queen Anne, wife unto the most noble King Henry the VIIIth. Early in the morning, attended by the same splendid throng, Anne went on foot to Westminster Abbey. There the accustomed ceremonies took place, Cranmer officiating, assisted by the Bishops John Stokesley and Stephen Gardiner. After the ceremony in the church there was the usual banquet in Westminster Hall, which Henry, with Jean de Dinteville and Carlo Capello, French and Venetian ambassadors, witnessed from a latticed window. The next morning there was a tournament, in which, as no French knights had come, Lord William Howard and Sir Nicholas Carew led the opposing parties. After this the king and Anne returned to Greenwich, where balls and banquets continued for a few days more.

Anne's old enemies, the Hanseatic merchants, continued to annoy her. A numerous fleet of German hulks came up the Thames and anchored opposite Greenwich, where she was staying; and to show their animosity, the Hanseatic captains invited Chapuys to dine on board their ships. When he arrived they hoisted the hateful eagles, and in honour of the Spanish ambassador made a loud noise with shouting, drumming, and firing of cannon. The king, under the influence of Cromwell, wisely abstained from taking any notice of the offences of either. The punishment of the English peasants would have made matters even worse, and a quarrel with the Easterlings would have been most dangerous. Their fleet was strongly manned, the Steelyard was still fortified and armed, and they might have proved stronger than the king.16 All that Anne could do was to leave Greenwich and to retire to Windsor out of reach of Hanseatic bacchanals.

***

For the time being nothing was suffered to appear in the treatment of the infant, whom her father was anxious to mark out as his only legitimate offspring and undoubted heir to the crown. A solemn Te Deum was sung at St Paul’s on September 8th 1533, the next day of Elizabeth’s birth, and the following Wednesday, the baby being four days old her christening was conducted with great pomp and ceremony, the lord mayor, all the aldermen and council of the city of London, besides a great number of knights and lords, being present. Henry VIII did not attend the ceremony nor did he take part in the subsequent reception. When the christening was over, Garter King-of-Arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the child’s style: “God, of His infinite goodness, send a prosperous life and long, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth!” (the name was given to her deliberately to identify her with the royal dynasty, especially Henry VIII’s mother)17). Sixteen and a half years before, the same proclamation had saluted Mary, the daughter born to Henry VIII and his consort, Catherine of Aragon. To those who attended, this scene must have appeared a heartless pageant and the little princess herself but a ‘mock idol’18, to be worshipped or rejected according to the caprice of an imperious father. This day of triumph could not but awaken some correspondent fears.

Experience had taught all surrounding the king to distrust the constancy of his affections, and to dread the effects of his resentment. Anne’s parents had seen their daughter raised to a pinnacle of greatness, but her fate depended on his caprice: the breath of his displeasure could precipitate her to destruction. Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, the grandfather of the princely infant, supported the train on one side. He would live long enough to witness the cruel and disgraceful end of his children (Anne and Thomas Boleyn), and died long before the prosperous days of his illustrious grandchild, Elizabeth.19

***

As for Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, her whole life had been clouded with the first whisper of the king’s ‘secret matter’20. Until then the Princess had been surrounded with all the charm of greatness, without any of its disadvantages, for she had been so wisely educated, that she remained unspoiled by the adulation of courtiers, or by the enthusiasm with which the nation regarded her. Her delight was in study, in music, in almsgiving, in the bestowal of gifts, and in the society of her parents, both of whom were remarkable for talents above the average. There was no element of romance in her character. Her mental endowments were essentially of a practical nature, and she lacked almost entirely the gifts necessary to adapt them to a changing world. Nearly all her life long the times were out of joint, and she knew no other way to set them right, but that of uncompromising opposition. Yet she possessed in an eminent degree the virtues of her limitations. Her whole conduct was moulded on examples which she had been taught to revere as her conscience, and consistent to a fault, she saw little evil in the old order, little good in the new. Ardently affectionate, a loyal friend and bountiful mistress, she was keenly sensitive to every act of fidelity. She was so bred as she hated evil, knew no foul or unclean speeches. The fatal shadow of Anne Boleyn had fallen on the throne, and the king’s infatuation for her was to sweep both his wife and his daughter into a vortex of misery from which there was no escape for one of them but death.

The subject had been mooted as far back as 1525, and the first mention of the coming divorce, of which there is any record, is contained in a letter from Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, to Wolsey. Referring to some other business, Warham says, “it will be better not to proceed further, till this great matter of the King’s grace be ended”. Again in 1526, after a long interval in which the subject seems to have been dropped, the Bishop of Bath and Wells remarked to the Cardinal of York, “there will be great difficulty circa istud benedictum divortium”.21

Mary was now stripped of the title of ‘Princess of Wales’, which she had borne from her childhood, that it might adorn a younger sister; one whose birth her interest, her religion, and her filial affection for an injured mother, taught her to regard as ‘base’ and ‘infamous’. She was swept by her emotion into a passionate resistance to the new order of things. Under the secret stimulus and guidance of the Imperial Spanish ambassador, she flouted her father’s wishes and commands with a tenacity that roused his wrath to dangerous levels. She persisted in regarding Anne Boleyn as a ‘concubine’, her child as a ‘bastard’, with the result that the relations between the two women became charged with venom.

***

Elizabeth, the baby Princess, had spent the first months of her life with her mother in the Palace of Greenwich. In the expected fashion of a great lady, Anne did not have daily care of her child. Early in December 1533, at the age of three months, she was sent to be fostered at Hertford, and thereafter her mother saw her occasionally. Nonetheless the queen was very much involved with seeing that her daughter was turned out in the style to which her status entitled her. She visited her, both alone and with Henry, and was in regular touch with Margaret, Lady Bryan, (the mother of Sir Francis), who had actual charge of the child. Yet as the mother of a Princess, Anne could only have a partial say in the major decisions about her child; the king or the council had the last word. When instructions were given to have Elizabeth weaned, at the age of twenty-five months, they were given ‘by his grace, with the assent of the queen’s grace.’ Anne may have felt a special affinity with the woman looking after Elizabeth for she was her mother’s half-sister. But that was accidental. Lady Bryan had not been chosen for that relationship, but because she had previously watched over the infancy of Princess Mary. The choice was clearly Henry’s. There are only a few vignettes of Anne with Elizabeth, or with Elizabeth and Henry. One or two days before her arrest shows Anne attempting to appeal to Henry through the child and hints at powerful emotions. Already by then she had begun to think about her daughter’s future. Only a day earlier, she had had a conversation on the subject with her chaplain, Matthew Parker, who to his dying days, would believe that Anne had in some way commended the girl to his spiritual care.22

***

After Elizabeth’s birth, Mary had stayed at Beaulieu (afterwards New Hall) in Essex, in the care of the Countess of Salisbury and Lord Hussey, through whom the instructions were sent that she must not only reduce her estate but abandon the name of ‘Princess’. This, Mary declined to do, even when letters to the same effect were written in the King’s name by Sir William Paulet, comptroller of Henry’s household, in one of which she was ordered to break up her establishment and remove instantly to Hertford Castle.

Henry was not a man meekly to receive a rebuff of this description from his daughter. Anne urged him to take every opportunity of humiliating her and boasted that she would compel Mary to serve her daughter as a lady’s maid. Then the young maiden, instead of going to Hertford Castle, was deprived of all her servants and sent to attend on Elizabeth in the household which had been established for the Royal infant at the royal manor of Hatfield. Passing through London on its way and providing a diversion for the spectacle-loving people, part of the escort was detached to break up Mary’s household and bring her to pay court to Anne’s child and live as a member of the new household. It was in vain that she protested. All that she could do was to continue in her obstinacy, refusing to surrender the title of Princess or to recognize Anne or her child. She spurned overtures from the queen and the two became implacable enemies. Nor did relations with her father improve, and whenever he visited Elizabeth, he ordered Mary to be confined to her room, refusing to see her.

This manner of life went on during the years 1534 and 1535. The Princess Elizabeth and her household were now at Hatfield, now at Eltham or Hunsdon or at some other royal manor; and occasionally at court. By this arrangement, Anne was divided from her child; but she reigned in her husband’s heart; and it seemed almost an article of national faith to believe in the permanence of their mutual love and concord. Artists and sculptors were employed to commemorate the circumstances of their romantic union and wherever the ciphers of the King and Anne Boleyn were presented, a truelove's knot was added, in allusion to the tender sentiments which had drawn them to each other.23

Secrecy and impersonality would be the features that Elizabeth would cultivate her whole life. She would carefully protect herself from the external world, that of appearances. Emerging as the unexpected heiress, she would manage to live against all odds, as behind a veil, a reaction against human shortcomings and aberrations, thus revealing her shrewdness. From the very beginning, she would live in a state of unconsciousness, depending on the whims and mood swings of her carers. To what extent they would mould her character, it is hard to say. She might have known a premature death; in the beginning she was ‘put away from the sight of many’, hidden somewhere, anonymous. Anything unpredictable might have happened to her in that dark time of the ages, when the wickedest seemed to dominate. This did not happen and the face of England was changed. How destiny fathomed her to remain unscathed is to be checked through the recesses of her own soul, this part in everyone which is open only to our Divinity. Elizabeth was preserved and continued growing in beauty, wisdom and splendour. In fact the circumstances around her would only serve as much as they would reveal divine grace.

1 Sir John Neale, Queen Elizabeth I, Pelican Biographies, Penguin Books, Ltd., 1960 p. 11.

2 Given originally for the ransom of two captive infant princes after the capture of Francis I, in 1525.

3 Philip W. Sergeant, The Life of Anne Boleyn, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1923, pp. 229 – 230.

4 Tudors’ Tracks, 1532-1588, New-York : E. P. Dutton & Co., p. 16.

5 Sir John Neale, Queen Elizabeth I, p. 11.

6 Agnes Strickland, The Life of Queen Elizabeth, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1906, 1st. ed., p. 23, https://www.books.google.com.

7 Witness to a Secret: Anne Savage, Lady Berkeley – Tudor Dynasty. https://www.tudorsdynasty.com/witness-to-a-secret-anne-savage-lady-berkeley/.

8 Eric W. Ives, Anne Boleyn, London : Basic Blackwell Ltd., 1986, p. 228.

9 Eric W. Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 293.

10 Elizabeth Woodville (1437 – 8 June 1492), was Queen of England from her marriage to King Edward IV on 1 May 1464 until Edward was deposed on 3 October 1470, and again from Edward's resumption of the throne on 11 April 1471 until his death on 9 April 1483.

11 Gladys Temperly, Rait Robert S. and William Page, eds., Henry VII, Queens and Kings of England, London: Constable & Co., Limited, 1st. publ. 1917, pp. 76-77.

12 Paul (de) Musset, Anne Boleyn, tome I, Bruxelles: A. D. Société typographique belge, Wahlen & Cie;, 1837, translated by the author, p. 153, https://www.gallica.bnf.fr.

13 Paul (de) Musset, Anne Boleyn, tome I, p. 153.

14 Philip W. Sergeant, The Life of Anne Boleyn. London: Hutchinson and Co., 1923, p. 206.

15 A recollection of some events happening during the reign of King Henry VII, when in London, due to the privileges of the Hanse merchants, who as foreigners were still engaged in the trade with Burgundy forbidden to Englishmen, had led to a dangerous riot and attack on the Steelyard (15th October 1493). In: Gladys Temperly and all, Henry VII, p. 132.

16 Reminiscence of the past called for the King’s prudent consideration.

17 Eric W. Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 231.

18 Ogilvy Elizabeth (Miss Benger). Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, Queen of Henry VIII. Philadelphia: A. Hart, Late Carey and Hart, 1850, p. 360.

19 Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, 2 vols combined, Shoe-Lane Richard & Arthur Taylor, 1818, Release Date: 2007, [eBook # 21500], https://www.projectgutenberg.org, p. 5.

20 Jean Mary Stone, The History of Mary I, Queen of England, as found in the public records, dispatches of ambassadors in original private letters, and other contemporary documents. London: Sands & Co., 1901, p. 24, Release Date: 2018, [eBook #56875], https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56875/56875-h/56875-h.htm.

21 No allusion to a divorce is made in the State Papers before 1527. In a letter of John Clark, Bishop, dated 13th September 1526, the words refer to the divorce between Margaret of Scotland and the Earl of Angus. It is only in the Spring of 1527 that Henry consults some of his most trusted counsellors about the legality of his marriage with his late brother’s widow. In: Paul Friedman, Anne Boleyn, A Chapter of English History, 1527 – 1536, vol. 2, London: Macmillan and Co., 1884, p. 136.

22 Eric W. Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 272.

23 Ogilvy Elizabeth (Miss Benger). Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, Queen of Henry VIII, p. 360.

I.2. Father Figure

To what extent do their progenitors’ traits of character mould a child? Can there even be any piercing through, even their conception?

Despite the depth of imagination, the elements to be relied upon are furnished in the books that are at the seeker’s disposal. Having mounted the throne at the age of eighteen, Henry Tudor seems to have possessed, in his youth alone, a powerful attraction, and it was a circumstance highly favourable to his prosperity, that in him were reconciled the opposing factions of York and Lancaster; in him revived the genuine royalty of the English Crown. In the portrait of Henry VIII, as depicted by Holbein, is said to be detected “that look of impenetrable mystery which was the background of his character.”24 Sir Walter Ralegh (or Raleigh) would comment “If all the patterns of a merciless tyrant had been lost to the world they might have been found in this prince.”25

Few would have thought that, under so careless and splendid an exterior - the very ideal of ‘bluff’, open hearted good humour and frankness - there lay “a watchful and secret mind that marked what was going on without seeming to do it; kept its own counsel until it was time to strike, and then struck as suddenly and remorselessly as a beast of prey. It was strange to witness so much subtlety combined with so much strength.”26

Born at Greenwich in 1491, baptised in the former parish church in a silver font ‘well padded with soft linen’, young Henry spent much of his time at his birthplace. His father, Henry the 7th, was very parsimonious, even to dieting his boys. The young giant of ten stole the cook’s cakes and got a good fill – sometimes; and so he named that place Placentia.27 He rebuilt the palace, erecting an unfortified dwelling, the sovereigns no longer required to dwell within a castle. His two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were born in the palace. Their royal father, though disappointed at the non-arrival of a Prince, ordered all reverence to be paid to the infant Princesses. Henry at that time seems to have been full of buoyant life and good humour, enjoying the rough and tumble of tournaments in the park, riding out in the early morning of the 1st of May to bring in the blossom, and rollicking in the dances and pageants of the time.28

His father was the son of Edmund Tudor, himself the child of a secret marriage (some say an illicit union) between Owen Tudor and Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois. Edmund Tudor was created Earl of Richmond in 1452 by Henry VI, his half-brother, and formally declared legitimate by Parliament. Even then, it would have taken a specific act of Parliament to place such a person in the line of succession. By the late 15th century, the Tudors were the last hope for the Lancaster supporters. Henry VII became king after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, winning the Wars of the Roses. He married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, thereby uniting the Lancastrian and York lineages. The popularity of the Tudors was, no doubt, enhanced by the fact that with their line, kings of decisively English blood, for the first time since the Norman Conquest, sat on the English throne.29

On the 7th November 1485, when Parliament met, after Henry VII’s coronation on the 30th of October, a matter of vital importance was dealt with, which had not been mentioned in the writs of summons: the confirmation of the king's title. Henry was reluctant to appear to owe his crown to an Act of Parliament, and the importance of the matter had been studiously minimised. The vexed question that had involved two generations of Englishmen in intrigue and civil war was settled, as far as Parliament could settle it, by a simple act which stated ‘in covert and indifferent words’, “that the inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and France, with all the pre-eminence and dignity royal to the same pertaining, be, rest, remain and abide in the most royal person of our now sovereign lord King Henry the Seventh, and in the heirs of his body lawfully coming perpetually with the grace of God so to endure and in none other.” The wording of the entail was a triumph for the king, who “would not endure any mention of the Lady Elizabeth,”30 and succeeded in obtaining a limitation of the crown to his heirs without binding himself to marry the Yorkist princess.

He escaped conditioning his kingship with an obligation which would have hinted at a crown matrimonial. An air of indifferent detachment, in which deep policy lurked, clothes the words in which Parliament recognized the pre-eminence of Henry's doubtful claim. On the 10th of December 1485, the king was present to prorogue Parliament, and a petition of the Commons was presented by the Speaker, asking him to marry the Lady Elizabeth of York. All reference to Henry's earlier promise to make Elizabeth his wife was tactfully omitted, and the king briefly replied that “he was willing to proceed according to their desire and request.”31 Then, after a short speech from the Chancellor, urging them to take care in putting down violence and disorder, especially to repress the vagabonds who were “running about the country spreading discords and lies under colour of begging,”32 Parliament was prorogued until the 23rd of January.

This first session of Parliament had been an important one. Henry had clothed his conquest with the forms of law. His adherents had been rewarded, and his enemies punished under strict legal forms. Violent usurpation and tyranny seemed to have given place to a dynasty wedded by choice and necessity, as well as by Lancastrian tradition, to a Parliamentary form of government. The session had had a reassuring effect upon the popular mind. But it was only on the surface that there was peace. The leaders of the Yorkist party were discontented; the union of the roses had brought them no profit, the chief offices of state and the king's confidence had been bestowed upon Lancastrians, and the delay in the queen's coronation aggravated their dissatisfaction. The marriage of the king and Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV took place on the 18th January of 1485-86. “Henry VII lived with all his family in the greatest harmony.”33 In 1486, before the birth of prince Arthur, the countess prepared for “Ordinances us to what preparation is to be made against the deliverance of a queen as also for the christening of the child of which she shall be delivered.”34 The coronation of the queen was appointed at Westminster on the feast of St. Catharine 1487.

The claims of the imprisoned Earl of Warwick were a topic of discussion as early as November I486. The rumour that the young Duke of York still lived bred in the ‘fantasticall ymagination’ of a priest named Richard Symons the idea of making one of his pupils, Lambert Simnel, personate him. The affair had reached this point when news that a ‘pretender’ had been set up against him in Ireland reached the king. Henry was then at Sheen, where on 2nd February 1486-7 he held a council to decide on the necessary measures of precaution. Among them, one was directed against the queen-dowager, Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the King’s wife. Her jointure lands were confiscated, a pension of 400 marks only being allowed to her, and she was assigned apartments in the abbey of Bermondsey. No cause was publicly assigned for these proceedings. The vague expression, ‘for various considerations,’ used in the Act certainly shrouds a mystery. Vergil states that “it was the punishment of the queen's treachery to Henry in surrendering her daughters to King Richard.”35 However, this betrayal had been long since condoned. The queen-dowager's estates had been restored by Henry's first Parliament, and she had since enjoyed the king's favour. No evidence survives to connect her with the plot. In the year 1497, the Spanish ambassador at that time, de Ayala, reported that Henry's crown was undisputed; he was complete master in England, observing with some insight that he showed a desire to ‘govern England after the French fashion.’ The settled policy by which Henry made himself the first of a line of despots did not escape shrewd observers. The troubles he had passed through, however, had already left their mark upon the man. “The king,” wrote Ayala, “looks old for his years but young for the sorrowful life he has led.”36

***

Henry VII’s ambition in an alliance with Spain for which he had wrought hard since 1488 - constantly handicapped by conspiracies and rebellions -, was affirmed by the betrothal, at the age of five, of Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand – ‘the Catholic’ and Isabella on one side, and Arthur of Wales, Henry VII’s eldest son, on the other side. Margaret, six years older than Mary, his younger daughter, was to be betrothed to James IV of Scotland.

By the treaty of the 1st of October 1496, it had been provided that “the marriage between Catherine and Arthur should take place when the prince had completed his fourteenth year; that the infanta’s marriage portion was to consist of 200,000 crowns, half to be paid within ten days of the celebration and the remainder within two years.”37 The last quarter might be paid in plate and jewels. The dower of the Princess of Wales was to consist of one-third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester, and was to be increased to the usual amount when she became Queen of England. Her rights of succession in Castile and Aragon were saved, and a separate document signed by Henry VII assured the succession to the throne of England to Arthur's children if he should die in his father's lifetime. This treaty did not completely satisfy Ferdinand. It contained none of the commercial concessions he hoped for and did not bind Henry to an offensive and defensive alliance with Spain. The efforts of Spanish diplomatists were concentrated upon obtaining some modification of the treaty. Ferdinand first tried to induce Henry to break with France by using the old lure of the speedy settlement of the marriage. But this charm no longer worked. Henry, well aware that the marriage had now been definitely decided on by the Spanish court, became less eager for its immediate end because he felt sure of its ultimate fulfilment. He realised the strength of his position. It is from the other side that the flattering expressions come. Isabella writes of Henry as “a prince of great virtue, firmness and constancy,”38 and hopes for a more intimate friendship with him after the marriage.”39

It was in July 1497, the month of Perkin Warbeck's adventure, that Henry at last ratified the marriage treaty. The betrothal of Arthur and Catherine took place a month later by proxy at Woodstock, where the court was established for the early autumn. The Spanish alliance was of immense practical value during this year of difficulty, especially in the Scotch negotiations. Henry received cordial assurances of Spanish support at the time of Warbeck's landing in Cornwall. Ferdinand and Isabella offered to dispatch a fleet, and hailed the defeat of the adventurer and the “great victory of their beloved brother, Henry,” with expressions of apparently sincere delight, announcing that “they had always known that he [Warbeck] was an impostor.”40

On the 4th of February 1497-8, the treaty was ratified for the second time by Ferdinand and Isabella and in July of the same year, after a dispensation had been obtained from the Pope, the proxy marriage took place with great solemnity, de Puebla, the Spanish ambassador representing the princess. Henry expressed his joy at this event with a vigour that meant a great deal from a man of his unenthusiastic temperament. He swore ‘on his royal faith’ that “he and the queen were more satisfied with this marriage than with any great dominions they might have gained with the daughter of another prince […].”

Henry and the Prince of Wales both wrote personal letters to Spain, and the king sent with his a curious gift consisting in twenty-four ‘blessed rings’,41 one dozen of them being gold and one dozen silver. Several young Spanish noblemen came over to England to enter the Prince of Wales's service, while an Englishman was recommended for the service of Princess Catherine.

A second proxy marriage took place at Bewdley, Prince Arthur's Herefordshire seat, on Whit Sunday, the 19th of May 1499. The prince, ‘in a loud and clear voice’, expressed his joy in contracting this marriage “not only in obedience to the Pope and to King Henry, but also from his deep and sincere love for the princess his wife”, and thereupon his lord chamberlain joined the hands of Prince Arthur and de Puebla, who again stood proxy for Catherine.

The Anglo-Spanish negotiations of the year 1500 were more than usually wearisome. The arrival of the Spanish Princess in England was expected. Prince Arthur had written in October 1499 expressing his anxiety to see his bride, and the king was spending enormous sums in preparing for her reception. But several things delayed her departure. Ferdinand made the sudden discovery, on comparing the earlier with the later marriage treaty, that the latter was less favourable to Spain instead of much more favourable, as de Puebla had often assured him it was. He declared that many of the conditions had been altered to suit Henry's views, and hoped that they might still be modified in spite of the number of times the treaty had been ratified on both sides.42

De Puebla, too, sent reports that made Ferdinand uneasy. Perhaps with a view of emphasising his heroic achievements he reported that the feeling in England was hostile to the Spanish match, and that he and the Bishop of London had had infinite difficulty in getting the council to agree to the treaty of alliance. Members of the council objected to the omission of the words ‘King of France’ from the king's style in letters from Ferdinand and Isabella, and vied with one another in pointing out difficulties in the treaty until Henry called them to order and told them to stop disputing words. The suspicious Ferdinand took alarm, and his fears were increased by the rumour that Henry was seriously considering a match between the Prince of Wales and a French Princess.

On Friday, the 8th of May, 1500, Henry and the queen suddenly left England for Calais. No one knew of their intention until a day or two before they started, and there was much speculation in diplomatic circles as to the motive of the visit. A French ambassador came to Calais to pay his respects to the king and bring an instalment of the tribute, and on Friday in Whit week Henry had an interview with the Archduke Philip at a church in the fields. “The interview, which was splendid and solemn, was very cordial… The archduke said that he loved Henry and regarded him as his protector.”43

Henry, much flattered, made a suitable reply. The king stayed a month in Calais before returning. The meeting with the archduke made Ferdinand suspect some manoeuvre of Maximilian's with a view of substituting the Princess Margaret of Austria for the Princess Catherine as a bride for the Prince of Wales. Therefore, while he concealed his suspicions in letters to de Puebla, Fuensalida was despatched on a special mission to England to see whether there was any truth in the rumour of another marriage, and instructed to keep a close watch on de Puebla, who was said to be entirely under Henry's influence.

De Puebla was brimming over with self-satisfaction at achieving ‘a masterpiece of diplomacy’, when making the final arrangements for the marriage, and gave a variety of reasons for his delay “the absence of the Prince of Wales, the Great Seal being kept at Westminster, the absence of the king and queen in Calais, the fact that the Latin secretary was suffering from ague, that the third son of the king had died, and that he himself was suffering great pain.” Fuensalida's report was not reassuring. He certainly thought the match was in some danger, and repeated de Puebla's remark that, “judging by the national character, it was quite likely that the English had changed their minds.”44

All this seems to have been a cobweb spun from the suspicious brains of the Spaniards. Preparations for the marriage, then expected in August 1500, were going on all over England, and Henry was spending large sums on jewels and so forth. But Ferdinand could not get rid of his suspicions. Various excuses were made to delay Catherine's departure, and Ferdinand announced that he wished the marriage ceremony, already twice performed, to be repeated as soon as the prince had completed his fourteenth year.

Henry thought the third repetition of the ceremony unnecessary, but gave way to de Puebla's representations, and the marriage took place at Ludlow Castle, the Prince of Wales's seat, on the 22nd of November 1500, the Bishop of Worcester officiating. De Puebla, as proxy of the princess, was placed at a table above the Prince of Wales on his right hand. Disputes about the size of Catherine's Spanish household followed. The list had been drawn up on a generous scale, as it was anticipated that Henry would pay the salaries, but the council were violently opposed to her bringing so many Spanish gentlemen and men servants with her, and specially ‘abhorred’ the idea of the Majordomo or Lord Steward. Henry declared that the number was unnecessarily large. “The princess,” he wrote, “will be better and more respectfully attended by English ladies and gentlemen than ever princess has been served before.”45 The Spanish ambassador was still oppressed by the ‘nightmare’ of trying to induce Henry to accept 35,000 crowns worth of the plate and jewels the princess was bringing with her as the first instalment of the marriage portion, an interpretation of the treaty which Henry was not disposed to accept. In a letter addressed to Henry, dated March 23rd 1501, Isabella expressed her gratification at hearing of the splendid preparations that were being made for her daughter's reception. Though she delighted in them as signs of the magnificent grandeur of her brother Henry, she ardently implored him “that her daughter should not be the cause of expense but of happiness to England, and that the substantial part of the festival should be Henry's love for his true daughter.”46

Henry's suggestion that the princess should land at Gravesend was not favoured by Isabella, who preferred Southampton or Bristol, as safer harbours. In spite of the 100,000 nobles spent in vain preparations the year before, still greater efforts were being made. Tournaments and meetings of the Knights of the Round Table were arranged, and distinguished foreigners were invited over to witness the celebrations. The young Duke of York went to Southampton to superintend preparations for her reception. At last, on the 21st of May 1501, after further delay caused by another rising of the Moors and a low fever from which she was only just recovering, Catherine left Granada.

Owing to the heat, she travelled by very slow stages, and did not reach Corunna until the middle of July. On the 25th of August 1501, she embarked, but was driven back by storms and hurricanes. She disembarked at Laredo, waiting for more favourable weather. On Monday, the 27th of September 1501, the fleet again sailed. Henry, hearing of her unfortunate experience, had sent one of his ablest captains to look out for the princess and convoy her to England. She, however, was still pursued by ill-luck, and on the voyage met with furious winds and thunderstorms. On Saturday, the 2nd of October 1501, at three o'clock in the afternoon, she reached Plymouth harbour. The nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood had flocked into the town. One of her attendants wrote to Isabella that “She could not have been received with greater rejoicings if she had been the Saviour of the world.”47

A month went by before Henry set out to meet her, though he wrote her a letter of welcome, and sent a number of English ladies, headed by the Duchess of Norfolk, to form her suite. He met Catherine at Dogmersfield on the 6th of November, and there they were joined by the Prince of Wales. Ferdinand's instructions that the princess was not to meet her husband or father-in-law before the wedding day had been overruled by Henry, who announced that he became Catherine's guardian as soon as she set foot on English soil. There was music by the latter’s minstrels, and the prince and princess danced together. Henry Wrote to Ferdinand later telling him “how much he admired Catherine's beauty as well as her agreeable and dignified manners.”48

It had been arranged that Catherine should make her public entry into London alone, the king and royal family viewing the procession from a platform in Cheapside, and on the 12th of November 1501, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, the bride rode from Lambeth over London Bridge into the city, followed by a great train of nobles and gentlemen. It was a scene of extraordinary gaiety and splendour. The procession passed through crowds of rejoicing citizens. The streets were lavishly decorated ; pageant followed pageant at different points of the city. At London Bridge she was met by a pageant which included St. Katherine and St. Ursula, both of whom recited very long poems, which, however, were a mere prelude to the eloquence which ‘Polycy’, ‘Noblesse’, ‘Vertue’, ‘the Archangel Raphael’, and others lavished on her at later stages of the route.

The final pageant represented the heavens with seven golden candlesticks, and ‘a man goodliche apparailed representyng the ffader of heven’. “Goodly ballades, swete armony, musicall instrumentes sounded with heavenly noyes on euery side of the strete.”49 Catherine was lodged in the bishop's palace near St. Paul's, where she was visited by the king and queen and the Countess of Richmond (mother of Henry VII), soon after her arrival. On the following Sunday (the 14th of November 1501), Arthur and Catherine were married in St. Paul's Cathedral, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and fifteen other prelates. The