Tudor Women Queens & Commoners

by Alison Plowden

  A key member of the nursery staff was, of course, the wet nurse, who must be healthy, clean in her person and habits and of unimpeachable character, for it was generally believed that an infant imbibed its nurse's morals or lack of them along with her milk. The royal wet nurse was a privileged person, and her food and drink were assayed (that is, tasted as a precaution against poison) 'during the time that she giveth suck to the child'; but Lady Margaret insisted that there should be a physician on duty to oversee her at every feed to make sure she was doing her job properly and not adding any unsuitable titbits to her charge's diet. The habit of employing a wet nurse was by no means confined to royal circles - most city-dwellers who could afford to do so would put their babies out to nurse in the country, hoping they might stand a better chance of survival away from the stench and noise and general nastiness of the streets. Wet nurses, incidentally, were sometimes used to nourish the old and toothless as well as the young and toothless -a somewhat gruesome but undeniably practical arrangement.

  The royal babies spent most of their time in a wooden cradle, a yard and a quarter long and twenty-two inches broad, lying under a scarlet coverlet furred with ermine. The nursery equipment also included a 'great cradle of estate', much larger and more imposing and heavily encrusted with silver and gilt, in which the latest infant could be shown off to visitors. But in her list of 'necessaries as belong unto the child', Margaret Beaufort did not overlook such humble items as 'a great pot of leather for water' and 'two great basins of pewter' for the baby's washing and, of course, the usual quantities of soft furnishings - curtains, wall-hangings, carpets and cushions - all intended to help keep out the icy draughts which whistled through the grandest houses.

  Despite the anxious care lavished on Henry VII's children, my lady the King's mother, her son and daughter-in-law were to know the sorrow of seeing the little Princess Elizabeth die at three years old and Prince Edmund at sixteen months; while there was at least one other child, a boy, born alive, who did not survive to be named. Death which preyed on babies, often in the shape of some form of enteritis, was no respecter of rank or dignity.

  During the early years of the reign, Lady Margaret was much in evidence at her son's Court. We know she was present at Winchester for the birth and christening of her first grandchild. She was there to see Henry's triumphant entry into London after his victory at Stoke in November 1487 - strictly speaking the last battle of the Wars of the Roses. She was present at Queen Elizabeth's coronation and at most of the elaborate feasts and shows with which Henry Tudor was at pains to impress the world at large and demonstrate that the new dynasty had come to stay.

  Politically, of course, Margaret was still valuable - the sight of her tall, stately, coroneted figure accompanying the King and Queen at public functions serving to remind people that Henry was no mere upstart, that the blood of Edward in and 'time honour'd Lancaster' flowed in his veins too. On the more personal side, there's no reason to suppose that my lady the King's mother was not human enough to be enjoying herself and, in a dignified way, revelling in the sight of her beloved son's continuing success. It's true that some unkind people hinted that the Queen was being deliberately pushed into the background but, although Elizabeth of York may sometimes have found her formidable mother-in-law a trifle overpowering, there's no evidence to suggest that relations between the two ladies were ever anything but affectionate.

  In any case, Margaret Beaufort had many other preoccupations which, as time went by, took up more and more of her attention. As well as actively supervising the complicated business of administering her own vast estates (and she never hesitated to resort to litigation in defence of her just rights), she was responsible for the equally enormous possessions of her ward, the young Duke of Buckingham: a responsibility which must have been faithfully discharged, since the Duke counted as one of the richest men in England when he reached his majority. Buckingham and his younger brother were brought up in Lady Margaret's household, where, according to the usual custom, she established a little school of handpicked companions to share their education, and in 1493 wrote to the Chancellor of the University of Oxford asking leave of absence for one Maurice Westbury whom she wished to employ as their tutor.

  The list of her charitable works and benefactions is a long one. 'Poor folk to the number of twelve she daily and nightly kept in her house, giving them lodging and drink and clothing, visiting them often, and in their sickness comforting them and administering to them with her own hands, records John Fisher; but probably Margaret Beaufort is best remembered for her patronage of the University of Cambridge where, guided by Fisher, himself a Cambridge man, she made generous endowments to the newly re-founded Christ's College and herself founded St. John's.

  But although Margaret was a highly intelligent and literate woman - she had been well grounded in French and often regretted she had not made more of her opportunities to study Latin - her interest in such matters never extended to promoting higher education for girls. She encouraged the printer Wynkyn de Worde to bring out books of devotion in the vernacular but remained largely untouched by the rising tide of questing intellectual excitement beginning to sweep through Christendom. Her purpose in founding colleges and endowing readerships was simply that the universities should have the means of adequately performing their primary task of training an efficient and well-educated clergy. Always devout, Lady Margaret commonly spent several hours of each busy day in prayer and meditation, hearing four or more Masses on her knees, and before she went to bed at night never failed 'to resort to her chapel and there for a large quarter of an hour to occupy her devotions'. Always a sparing eater, she observed fast days meticulously and during Lent would restrict herself to one fish meal a day. According to John Fisher, she was also in the habit of wearing a hair shirt or girdle on certain days of every week 'when she was in health'. The author of the Italian Relation of the Island of England noted that many Englishwomen carried long rosaries in their hands and that those who could read would take the Office of Our Lady to church with them, reciting it verse by verse with a companion; but although most of her contemporaries were careful in the outward observance of their religious duties, Lady Margaret's piety was deeply-felt devotion on a grand scale. Next to her son, her religion was undoubtedly the most important thing in her life.

  As she grew older and more and more immersed in her various charitable and business affairs, my lady the King's mother was seen less often at Court, but she seldom missed any big family occasion. Certainly she was in town in November 1501 for the wedding of Arthur, Prince of Wales, and the Spanish Princess Catherine of Aragon. Once again she 'wept marvellously' throughout the splendid ceremony in St. Paul's Cathedral, but this time, unhappily, Lady Margaret's perennial dread that adversity would follow triumph proved well founded, for within six months Arthur was dead at the age of fifteen.

  The loss of their precious elder son and heir came as a terrible blow to his parents, and we have a poignant glimpse of Queen Elizabeth attempting to comfort her husband, reminding him that his mother 'had never no more children but him only and that God had ever preserved him and brought him where he was'. They still had a fair prince and two fair princesses, and there might yet be more. 'We are both young enough', said Elizabeth gallantly. She was now in her thirty-eighth year and after seven pregnancies could reasonably have felt she had more than done her duty in this respect, but it seems that for Henry's sake she was ready to begin all over again if necessary - a gesture which in itself suggests a bond of tender affection, if not real love between them.

  Meanwhile the three surviving children were growing up, and January 1502 had seen the betrothal of Margaret, elder of the two fair princesses, to King James IV of Scotland. The ceremony took place at Richmond Palace, Patrick, Earl of Bothwell, acting as James's proxy, and in the presence of her parents, her brother and sister and a notable assemblage of bishops, lords and ladies, Margaret, 'wittingly and of deliberate mind, having twelve years complete in age in th
e month of November last past', solemnly plighted her troth, vowing to take 'the said James, King of Scotland, unto and for my husband and spouse, and all other for him forsake during his and mine lives natural'. The trumpeters blew a fanfare, the minstrels struck up 'in the best and most joyfullest manner', and the Queen took her daughter by the hand and led her to the place of honour at a banquet laid out in the royal apartments in recognition of her altered status.

  Margaret was now officially regarded as a married woman and addressed in public as Queen of Scotland, but another eighteen months were to pass before she left home, and during that time tragedy struck again at the royal family. In February 1503 Elizabeth of York was brought to bed of her eighth child, a girl christened Katherine, but it killed her, and the baby for whom she had given her life 'tarried but a small season after her mother'.

  The Queen had always been a popular figure - 'one of the most gracious and best beloved princesses in the world in her time being' - and she was genuinely mourned. She never took any active part in politics and probably never wanted to, but in her own sphere her influence seems to have been entirely benign. To her contemporaries she embodied all the most admired female virtues, being a chaste, fruitful and submissive wife, a loving mother, a dutiful daughter, an affectionate sister and a pious, charitable Christian. She is said to have been beautiful, and probably she was a pretty woman - the Yorkists were a handsome family, and Elizabeth Woodville must certainly have possessed considerable physical attractions. Fortunately, though, her daughter inherited none of the dowager's less admirable characteristics and, from the scanty personal information available, a picture emerges of what is usually described as a very feminine woman - placid, warm-hearted, sweet-tempered and generous, but naturally indolent, totally without ambition, happy to let others take the lead (and the responsibility) and perfectly content in her own small family world. In the often still dangerously tense political atmosphere, this was precisely what the new dynasty needed, and by her negative as well as her positive qualities Elizabeth of York undoubtedly helped to provide a stabilizing element.

  Henry honoured his wife with a splendid state funeral. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, with her sister, Lady Katherine Courtenay, acting as chief mourner, while the King 'departed to a solitary place to pass his sorrow'. The Queen's death, says one account, 'was as heavy and dolorous to the King's highness as hath been seen or heard of, but Henry could not afford the luxury of mourning for long. The daily grind of government had to go on, and that summer the young Queen of Scotland was due to travel north to begin her married life. The King escorted his daughter as far as his mother's house at Collyweston in Northamptonshire, where Margaret Beaufort now spent most of her time, and here the goodbyes were said. The bride was to make the rest of her wedding journey in the charge of the Earl and Countess of Surrey, who would be responsible for handing her over to her husband.

  There was no sentimental cult of youth in the sixteenth-century world - life was altogether too short and too uncertain - and few concessions were made to immaturity. Margaret, still three months short of her fourteenth birthday, was admittedly young to be married and a queen, but by no means exceptionally so. Her father, and society at large, regarded her as an adult and expected her to behave as one.

  The marriage was, of course, entirely a matter of political convenience, intended to seal a treaty of alliance which, it was hoped, would end the ancient feud between England and her nearest neighbour, loosen the almost equally ancient Franco-Scottish connection - always a source of trouble and danger to England - and secure the vulnerable northern frontier. Henry had been negotiating this treaty for a number of years and regarded its completion as something of a triumph. Such considerations as those that his daughter had never seen her future husband, that he was at least fifteen years older and known to be keeping a mistress, were not felt to be relevant. The King of Scotland was a gentleman, and there was no reason to suppose that he would not treat his wife with proper courtesy and respect. As for Margaret, she was making an honourable marriage, a career for which she had been trained from babyhood, and now it was up to her to make a success of it.

  The time, indeed, was approaching when the second generation of royal Tudors would have to take over the family business. The King never really recovered from the shock of losing his elder son and his wife within the space of ten months. He aged visibly after the Queen's death, and his health began to fail. He lived for another six years, but when he died, in April 1509, 'of a consuming sickness', at the age of fifty-two, he was already an old man.

  His mother did not long survive her own 'sweet and most dear king' and all her worldly joy. Margaret Beaufort was now in her sixty-sixth year, a considerable age by contemporary standards, but her health, even in her last years, seems to have been better than her son's, for she was still active and kept all her faculties to the end. She came up to London to see her eighteen-year-old grandson crowned, staying in the Abbot's House at Westminster for the occasion, and there, at the beginning of July, she died. Her death, coming in the midst of a hectic round of post-coronation festivities, attracted comparatively little attention, though she was, of course, buried with all proper respect alongside her son and daughter-in-law in Henry VII's Chapel in the Abbey, the new Queen, Catherine of Aragon, seeing to most of the arrangements, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, preaching the funeral sermon at a solemn Requiem Mass.

  Fisher did full justice to his old friend's memory. 'She had in a manner all that is praisable in a woman, either in soul or body,' he declared; 'she was of singular wisdom and a holding memory; a ready wit she had to conceive all things, albeit they were right dark. In favour, in words, in gesture, in every demeanour of herself, so great nobleness did appear that whatever she spoke or did, it marvellously became her.' Fisher went on to speak of her generosity, her kindliness and her unfailing good manners. 'Of marvellous gentleness she was unto all folk, but specially unto her own, whom she loved and trusted right tenderly.... Merciful also and piteous she was unto such as were grieved or wrongfully troubled, and to them that were in poverty or any other misery.' The Bishop felt that the whole country had reason to mourn her passing:

  the poor creatures that were wont to receive her alms ...; the students of both the Universities, to whom she was as a mother; all the learned men of England, to whom she was a very patroness; all the virtuous and devout persons, to whom she was as a loving sister; ... all good priests and clerics, to whom she was a true defendress; all the noble men and women, to whom she was a mirror, an example of honour; all the common people of this realm, for whom she was in their causes a common mediatrix, and took right great pleasure for them.

  Fisher, of course, was prejudiced, but even so there is no doubt that my lady the King's mother was a great lady in the best sense; deeply conscious of the duties and responsibilities attached to wealth and high position, and tirelessly conscientious in discharging them. Dignified, gracious and good, there is no doubt that by her life and work she did much to establish popular respect and esteem for the royal House she had founded.

  2. BY GOD'S GRACE BOYS WILL FOLLOW

  The one thing pretty well everyone knows about Henry VIII is that he had six wives - admittedly an unusual achievement for any man and unique among English kings. What is not so often known or remembered is that his first marriage lasted very nearly twenty years and that the other five, none of which lasted longer than three years and two only a matter of months, were all squeezed into the last fourteen years of his life.

  Almost the first thing the new King did was to get married, taking as his bride his brother's widow, the Spanish Princess Catherine. Some people, so it was said later, had their doubts about the validity of this marriage between brother and sister-in-law from the beginning, but no one apparently felt strongly enough to register a formal protest. The Pope had, after all, issued the necessary dispensations, and Catherine had been officially betrothed to Henry in the summer of 1503 in order to repair the Angl
o-Spanish link broken by Arthur's untimely death. The marriage should have taken place in 1505, as soon as Henry had entered his fifteenth year, but the financial and other difficulties which prevented Catherine's father, Ferdinand of Aragon, from delivering the second half of her dowry, and the general deterioration of relations between England and Spain, had combined to postpone the wedding, it seemed indefinitely.

  For Catherine the results of this delay were unhappy. One of the conditions of her second marriage contract had been a renunciation of her dower rights as Arthur's widow. Under English law a widow was normally automatically entitled to a third of her late husband's estate, and, as Dowager Princess of Wales, Catherine should have received a third of the revenues of the principality and also of the duchy of Cornwall and earldom of Chester. As matters stood, however, she had been left financially dependent on her father-in-law until her second marriage took place and, as Henry VII's dislike and suspicion of the slippery Ferdinand grew, her position became progressively more uncomfortable. In 1505 Henry cut off the not very generous allowance he had been making her and closed Durham House, where she had been living with her Spanish household. Henceforward the Princess was obliged to live like a poor relation on the fringes of the Court, pawning her plate and selling off bits of jewellery in order to clothe herself and feed her remaining Spaniards, forced to put up with insolence and neglect from the royal servants, cold-shouldered by the family and growing ever more deeply in debt to the London goldsmiths.

  But even in her teens Catherine of Aragon was no nonentity to be intimidated by rudeness or dismayed by loneliness and penury. If the King had been hoping that she would beg to go home and thus give him an excuse for breaking off her engagement, he was disappointed. Courageous, stubborn and proud, Catherine bore a strong resemblance to her dead mother, that redoubtable warrior Queen Isabella of Castile, and like a good soldier she stayed grimly at her post. The English, she told her father, could not break her spirit, and she would rather die than return rejected to Spain.